SARTOR/ RE SARTUS; 



THS 



LIFE AND OPINIONS 



OP 



HERR TEUFELSDROCKH 



IN THREE BOOKS. 
BY THOMAS CARLYLE, 

AUTHOR OF THE "FRENCH REVOLUTION," " PAST AND PRESENT," &C. *C. 



Mein Vermachtniss, wie herrlich weit und breit ! 

Die Zeit ist mein Vermachtniss, mein Acker ist die Zeit. 



PROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED BY THE AOTHOR. 



BOSTOiN: 
JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY 

1846. 






V<.i A cHiif ; •:;l;'^' 



i I 5 



i-er:::' 



CONTENTS 



BOOK I. / 



^. 



Page 

Chapter I. Preliminary 5 

II. Editorial Difficulties 7 

III. Reminiscences . . 10 

IV. Characteristics ,15 

V. The World in Clothes ,19 

VI. Aprons 22 

VII. Miscellaneous-historical 23 

VIII. The World out of Clothes 25 

IX. Adamitism 28 

X. Pure Reason 30 

XI. Prospective 33 



BOOK II. 

Chapter I. Genesis 38 

II. Idyllic 42 

III. Pedagogy . 46 

IV. Getting under Way 54 

V. Romance , . .60 

VI. Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh 67 

VII. The everlasting No 71 

VIII. Centre of Indifference 75 

IX. The everlasting Yea 81 

X. Pause . 87 



BOOK III. 

Chapter I. Incident in Modem History 92 

II. Church Clothes 94 

III. Symbols 96 

IV. Helotage 100 

V. ThePhcEnix 102 

VI. Old Clothes 105 

VII. Organic Filaments 107 

VIII. Natural Supernaturalism 112 

IX. Circumspective 117 

X. The Dandiacal Body 119 

XI. Tailors * . 126 

XII. Farewell 127 



SARTOR RESARTUS. 



BOOK I. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY. 

Considering our present advanced state of culture, and Ifow the Torch 
of Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less 
effect, for five thousand years and upwards ; how, in these times espe- 
cially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely than 
ever, but innumerable Rush-lights and Sulphur-matches, kindled there- 
at, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest cranny 
or doghole in Nature or Art can remain unilluminated, — it might strike 
the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little or nothing of 
a fundamental character, whether in the way of Philosophy or History, 
has been written on the subject of Clothes. 

Our Theory of Gravitation is as good as perfect: Lagrange, it is well 
known, has proved that the Planetary System, on this scheme, will en- 
dure for ever ; Laplace, still more cunningly, even guesses that it could 
not have been made on any other scheme. Whereby, at least, our nau- 
tical Logbooks can be better kept ; and water transport of all kinds has 
grown more commodious. Of Geology and Geognosy we know enough : 
what with the labors of our Werners and Huttons, what with the ardent 
genius of their disciples, it has come about that now, to many a Royal 
Society, the Creation of a World is little more mysterious than the 
cooking of a Dampling; concerning which last, indeed, there have been 
minds to whom the question. How the Apples were got in, presented difficul- 
ties. Why mention our disquisitions on the Social Contract, on the 
Standard of Taste, on the Migrations of the Herring 1 Then, have we 
not a Doctrine of Rent; a Theory of Value; Philosophies of Language, 
of History, of Pottery, of Apparitions, of Intoxicating Liquors 1 Man's 
whole life and environment have been laid open and elucidated ; scarcely 
a fragment or fibre of his Soul, Body, and Possessions, but has been 
probed, dissected, distilled, desiccated, and scientifically decomposed: 
our spiritual Faculties, of which it appears there are not a few, have 
their Stewarts, Cousins, Royer Collards: every cellular, vascular, mus- 
cular Tissue glories in its Lawrences, Majendies, Bichats. 

How, then, comes it, may the reflective mind repeat, that the grand 
Tissue of all Tissues, the only real Tissue should have been quite over- 
looked by Science,— the vestural Tissue, namely, of woollen or other 
cloth; which Man's Soul wears as its outmost wrappage and overall ; 
wheitein his whole other Tissues are included and screened, his whole 
Faculties work, his whole Self lives, moves, and has its being 1 For if, 
1* 



6 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

now and tlien, some straggling broken- winged thinker has cast an owl's 
glance into this obscure region, the most have soared over it altogether 
heedless; regarding Clothes as a property, not an accident, as quite na- 
tural and spontaneous, like the leaves of trees, like the plumage of birds. 
In all speculations they have tacitly figured man as a Clothed Animal; 
whereas he is by nature a Naked Animal; and only in certain circum- 
stances, by purpose and device, masks himself in Clothes. Shakspeare 
says, we are creatures that look before and after: the more surprising 
that we do not look round a little, and see what is passing under our 
very eyes. 

But here, as in so many other cases, Germany, learned, indefatigable, 
deep-thinking Germany comes to our aid. It is, after all, a blessing 
that, in these revolutionary times, there should be one country where 
abstract Thought can still lake shelter ; that while the din and frenzy 
of Catholic Emancipations, and Rotten Boroughs, and Revolts of Paris, 
deafen every French and every English ear, the German can stand 
peaceful on his scientific watch-tower ; and, to the raging, struggling 
multitude here and elsewhere, solemnly, from hour to hour, with pre- 
paratory blast of cowhorn, emit his Horet ihr Herren und lasseVs Euch 
sagen ; in other words, tell the Universe, which so often forgets that 
fact, what o'clock it really is. Not unfrequently the Germans have been 
blamed for an unprofitable diligence; as if they struck into devious 
courses, where nothing was to be had but the toil of a rough journey ; 
as if, forsaking the gold mines of Finance, and that political slaughter 
of fat oxen whereby a man himself grows fat, they were apt to run 
goose-hunting into regions of bilberries and crowberries, and be swal- 
lowed up at last in remote peat-bogs. Of that unwise science, which, 
as our Humorist expresses it, 

" By Geometric scale, 
Doth take the size of pots of ale," 

Still more, of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seen vigor- 
ously enough thrashing mere straw, there can nothing defensive be said. 
In so far as the Germans are chargeable with such, let them take the 
consequence. Nevertheless be it remarked, that even a Russian steppe 
has tumuli and gold ornaments ; also many a scene that looks desert and 
rock-bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited, into rare 
valleys. Nay, in any case, would Criticism erect not only finger-posts 
and turnpikes, but spiked gates and impassable barriers, for the mind 
of man'? It is written, "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge 
shall be increased." Surely the plain rule is, Let each considerate per- 
son have his way, and see what it will lead to. For not this man and 
that man, but all men make up mankind, and their united tasks the task 
of mankind. How often have we seen some such adventurous, and 
perhaps much-censured wanderer light on some outlying, neglected, yet 
vitally momentous province ; the hidden treasures of which he first dis- 
covered, and kept proclaiming till the general eye and efibrt were di- 
rected thither, and the conquest was completed ; — thereby, in these his 
seemingly so aimless rambles, planting new standards, founding new 
habitable colonies, in the immeasurable circumambient realm of Noth- 
ingness and Night 1 Wise man was he who counselled that Specula- 
tion should have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty- 
two points of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed. 

Perhaps it is proof of the stinted condition in which pure Science, 
especially pure moral Science, languishes among us English ; and how 
our mercantile greatness, and invaluable Constitution, impressing a po- 



PRELIMINARY. 7 

litical or other immediately practical tendency o^ all English culture and 
endeavor, cramps the free flight of Thought, — that this, not Philosophy 
of Clothes, but recognition even that we have no sach Philosophy, stands 
here for the first time published in our language. What English intel- 
lect could have chosen such a topic, or by chance stumbled on it 1 But 
for that same unshackled, and even sequestered condition of the German 
Learned, which permits and induces them to fish in all manner of 
waters, with all manner of nets, it seems probable enough, this abstruse 
Inquiry might, in spite of the results it leads to, have continued dormant 
for indefinite periods. The Editor of these sheets, though otherwise 
boasting himself a man of confirmed speculative habits, and perhaps 
discursive enough, is free to confess, that never, till these last months, 
did the above very plain considerations, on our total want of a Philoso- 
phy of Clothes, occur to him ; and then, by quite foreign suggestion. By 
the arrival, namely, of a new Book from Professor Teufelsdrockh of 
Weissnichtwo ; treating expressly of this subject ; and in a style which, 
whether understood or not, could not even by the blindest be overlooked. 
In the present Editor's way of thought, this remarkable Treatise, with 
its Doctrines, whether as judicially acceded to, or judicially denied, has 
not remained without eifect. 

" Die Kleider, ihr Werden und Wirken (Clothes, their Origin and In- 
fluence) : von Diog Teufelsdr'dcJch, J. U. D. etc. Stillschweigen und 
Cognie. Weissnichtwo, 1831: 

" Here," says the Weissnichtwo^ sche Anzeiger, " comes a Volume of 
that extensive, close-printed, close-meditated sort, which, be it spoken 
with pride, is seen only in Germany, perhaps only in Weissnichtwo. 
Issuing from the hitherto irreproachable Firm of Stillschweigen and 
Company, with every external furtherance, it is of such internal quality 
as to set Neglect at defiance." * * * * " a work," concludes the 
well nigh enthusiastic Reviewer, " interesting alike to the antiquary, the 
historian, and the philosophic thinker ; a master-piece of boldness, lynx- 
eyed acuteness, and rugged independent Germanism and Philanthropy 
(derben Kerndeutschheit und Menschenliebe) ; which will not, assuredly, 
pass current without opposition in high places ; but must and will exalt 
the almost new name of Teufelsdrockh to the first ranks of Philosophy, 
in our German Temple of Honor." 

Mindful of old friendship, the distinguished Professor, in this the first 
blaze of his fame, which however does not dazzle him, sends hither a 
Presentation Copy of his Book; with compliments and encomiums 
which modesty forbids the present Editor to rehearse ; yet without indi- 
cated wish or hope of any kind, except what may be implied in the con- 
cluding phrase : Mochte es (this remarkable Treatise) auchim Brittischen 
Boden sredeihen ? 



CHAPTER II. 

EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 

If for a speculative man, "whose seedfield," in the sublime words of 
the Poet, " is Time," no conquest is important but that of new Ideas, 
then might the arrival of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Book be marked 
with chalk in the Editor's Calendar. It is indeed an " extensive Vol- 
ume," of boundless, almost formless contents, a very Sea of Thought; 
neither calm nor clear, if you will; yet wherein the toughest pearl-diver 
may dive to his utmost depth, and return not only with sea- wreck but 
with true orients. 

Directly on the first perusal, almost on the first deliberate inspection, 



8 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

it became apparent thaf here a quite new Branch of Philosophy, leading 
to as yet undescried ulterior results, was disclosed ; farther, what seemed 
scarcely less interesting, a quite new human Individuality, an almost 
unexampled personal character, that, namely, of Professor Teufelsdrockh 
the Discloser. Of both which novelties, as far as might be possible, we 
resolved to master the significance. But as man is emphatically a Pro- 
selytising creature, no sooner was such mastery even fairly attempted, 
than the new quesiion arose : How might this acquired good be impart- 
ed to others, perhaps in equal need thereof; how could the Philosophy 
of Clothes and the Author of such Philosophy be brought home, in any 
measure, to the business and bosoms of our own English nation'? For 
if new-got gold is said to burn the pockets till it be cast forth into circu- 
lation, much more may new Truth. 

Here, however, difliculties occurred. The first thought naturally was 
to publish Article after Article on this remarkable Volume, in such 
widely-circulating Critical Journals as the Editor might stand connected 
with, or by money or love procure access to. But, on the other hand, 
was it not clear that such matter as must here be revealed and treated 
of might endanger the circulation of any Journal extant '? If, indeed, 
the whole parties of the State could have been abolished, Whig, Tory, 
and Radical, embracing in discrepant union ; and the whole Journals 
of the Nation could have been jumbled into one Journal, and the Philo- 
sophy of Clothes poured forth in incessant torrents therefrom, the 
attempt had seemed possible. But, alas, what vehicle of that sort have 
we, except Frazer's Magazine 7 A vehicle all strewed (figuratively 
speaking) with the maddest "Waterloo-Crackers, exploding distractively 
and destructively, wheresoever the mystified passenger stands or sits ; 
nay, in any case, understood to be, of late years, a vehicle full to over- 
flowing, and inexorably shut! Besides, to state the Philosophy of 
Clothes without the Philosopher, the ideas of Teufelsdrockh without 
something of his personality, was it not to insure both of entire misap- 
prehension 1 Now for Biography, had it been otherwise admissible, 
there were no adequate documents, no hope of obtaining such, but rather 
owing to circumstances, a special despair. Thus did the Editor see him- 
self, for the while, shut out from all public utterance of these extraordi- 
nary Doctrines, and constrained to revolve them, not without disquietude, 
in the dark depths of his own mind. 

So had it lasted for some months ; and now the Volume on Clothes, 
read and again read, was in several points becoming lucid and lucent ; 
the personality of its Author more and more surprising, but, in spite of 
all that memory and conjecture could do, more and more enigmatic ; 
whereby the old disquietude seemed fast settling into fixed discontent, 
—when altogether unexpectedly arrives a Letter from Herr Hofrath 
Heuschrecke, our Professor's chief friend and associate in Weissnich- 
two, with v/hom we had not previously corresponded. The Hofrath, 
after much quite extraneous matter, began dilating largely on the " agi- 
tation and attention" which the Philosophy of Clothes was exciting in 
its own German Republic of Letters ; on the deep significance and ten- 
dency of his Friend's Volume; and then, at length, with great circum- 
locution, hinted at the practicability of conveying "some knowledge of 
it, and of him, to England, and through England to the distant West:" 
a Work on Professor Teufelsdrockh "were undoubtedly welcome to 
the Family, the National, or any other of those patriotic Libraries, at 
present the glory of British Literature;" might work revolutions in 
Thought ; and so forth ;— in conclusion, intimating not obscm^ely, that 
should the present Editor feel disposed to undertake a Biography of 
Teufelsdrockh, he, Hofrath Heuschrecke, had it in his power to furnish 
the requisite Documents. 



EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. <9 

As in some chemical mixture, that has stood long evaporating, but 
would not crystallise, instantly when the wire or other Used substance 
is introduced, crystallisation commences, and rapidly proceeds till the 
whole is finished, so was it with the Editor's mind and this oiFer of 
Heuschrecke's. Form rose out of void solution and discontinuity ; like 
united itself with like in definite arrangement : and soon either in actual 
vision and possession, or in fixed reasonable hope, the image of the whole 
Enterprise had shaped itself, so to speak, into a solid mass. Cautiously 
yet courageously, through the twopenny post, application to the famed re- 
doubtable Oliver Yorke was now made : an interview, interviews with 
that singular man have taken place; with more of assurance on our side, 
with less of satire (at least of open satire) on his, than we anticipated ; 
— for the rest, with such issue as is now visible. As to those same " pa- 
triotic Libraries,^^ the Hofrath's counsel could only be viewed with 
silent amazement ; but with his offer of Documents we joyfully and al- 
most instantaneously closed. Thus, too, in the sure expectation of these, 
we already see our task begun ; and this our Sartor Resartus, which is 
properly a "Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh," hourly ad- 
vancing. 

Of our fitness for the Enterprise, to which we have such title and avo- 
cation, it were perhaps uninteresting to say more. Let the British reader 
study and enjoy, in simplicity of heart, what is here presented him, and 
with whatever metaphysical acumen and talent for Meditation he is 
possessed of. Let him strive to keep a free, open sense ; cleared from 
the mists of Prejudice, above all from the paralysis of Cant; and direct- 
ed rather to the Book itself than to the Editor of the Book. Who or 
what such Editor may be, must remain conjectural, and even insignifi- 
cant:* it is a Voice publishing tidings of the Philosophy of Clothes; un- 
doubtedly a Spirit addressing Spirits : whoso hath ears let him hear. 

On one other point the Editor thinks it needful to give warning: 
namely, that he is animated with a true though perhaps a feeble at- 
tachment to the Institutions of our Ancestors ; and minded to defend 
these, according to ability, at all hazards ; nay, it was partly with a view 
to such defence that he engaged in this undertaking. To stem, or if 
that be impossible, profitably to divert the current of Innovation, such a 
Volume as Teufelsdrockh's, if cunningly planted down, were no despi- 
cable pile, or floodgate, in the Logical wear. 

For the rest, be it nowise apprehended, that any personal connection 
of ours with Teufelsdrockh, Heuschrecke, or this Philosophy of Clothes, 
can pervert our judgment, or sway us to extenuate or exaggerate. Pow- 
erless, we venture to promise, are those private Compliments themselves. 
Grateful they may well be ; as generous illusions of friendship ; as fair 
mementos of bygone unions, of those nights and suppers of the gods, 
when lapped in the symphonies and harmonies of Philosophic Eloquence, 
though with baser accompaniments, the present Editor revelled in that 
feast of reason, never since vouchsafed him in so full measure! But 
what then*? Amicus Plato, magis arnica Veritas; Teufelsdrockh is our 
friend. Truth is our divinity. In our historical and critical capacity, 
we hope, we are strangers to all the world ; have feud or favor with no 
one, — save indeed the Devil, with whom as with the Prince of Lies and 
Darkness we do at all times wage internecine war. This assurance, at 
an epoch when Puffery and Cluackery have reached a height unexam- 
pled in the annals of mankind, and even English Editors, like Chinese 
Shopkeepers, must write on their door-lintels, No cheating here, — we 
thought it good to premise. 

* With us even he still communicates in some sort of mask, or muffler ; and, we 
have reason to think, under a feigned name ! — O. Y. 



10 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

CHAPTERIII. 

REMINISCENCES. 

To the Author's private circle the appearance of this singular Work 
on Clothes must have occasioned little less surprise than it has to the 
rest of the world. For ourselves, at least, few things have been more 
unexpected. Professor Teufelsdrockh, at the period of our acquaint- 
ance with him, seemed to lead a quite still and self-contained life : a man 
devoted to the higher Philosophies, indeed : yet more likely, if he pub- 
lished at all, to publish a Refutation of Hegel and Bardili, both of whom, 
strangely enough, he included under a common ban ; than to descend, 
as he has here done, into the angry noisy Forum, with an Argument 
that cannot but exasperate and divide. Not, that we can remember, was 
the Philosophy of Clothes once touched upon between us. If through 
the high, silent, meditative Transcendentalism of our Friend we detect- 
ed any practical tendency whatever, it was at most Political, and to- 
wards a certain prospective, and for the present quite speculative. Radi- 
calism ; as indeed some correspondence, on his part, with Hen Oken of 
Jena was now and then suspected ; though his special contributions to 
the Isis could never be more than surmised at. But, at all events, nothing 
Moral, still less anything Didactico-Religious, was looked for from him. 
Well do we recollect the last words he spoke in our hearing ; which 
indeed, with the Night they were utttered in, are to be for ever remem- 
bered. Lifting his huge tumbler of Gukguk* and for a moment lower- 
ing his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full coflfee-house (it was Zum Grunen 
Ganse, the largest in Weissnichtwo, where all the Virtuosity and nearly 
all the Intellect of the place assembled of an evening) ; and there, with 
low, soul-stirring tone, and the look truly of an angel, though whether 
of a white or of a black one might be dubious, proposed this toast : Die 
Sache der Arrnen in Gottes U7id TeufeU Namen (The Cause of the Poor 

in Heaven's name and 's) ! One full shout, breaking the leaden 

silence ; then a gurgle of innumerable emptying bumpers, again follow- 
ed by universal cheering, returned him loud acclaim. It was the finale 
of the night : resuming their pipes ; in the highest enthusiasm, amid vo- 
lumes of tobacco-smoke ; triumphant, cloudcapt without and within, the 
assembly broke up, each to his thoughtful pillow. Bleibt dock ein echter 
Spass-und Galgen-vogel, said several ; meaning thereby that, one day, 
he would probably be hanged for his democratic sentiments. Wo stecU 
der Schalkl added they, looking round: but Teufelsdrockh had retired 
by private alleys, and the Compiler of these pages beheld him no more. 
In such scenes has it been our lot to live with this Philosopher, such 
estimate to form of his purposes and powers. And yet, thou brave Teu- 
felsdrockh, who could tell what lurked in thee 1 Under those thick 
locks of thine, so long and lank, overlapping roof- wise the gravest face 
we ever in this world saw, there dwelt a most busy brain. In thy eyes, 
too, deep under their shaggy brows, and looking out so still and dreamy, 
have we not noticed gleams of an ethereal or else a diabolic fire, and 
half fancied that their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion, the 
sleep of a spinning top*? Thy little figure, there as in loose, ill-brushed, 
threadbare habiliments, thou sattest, amid litter and lumber, whole days, 
to " think and smoke tobacco," held in it a mighty heart. The secrets 
of man's Life were laid open to thee ; thou sawest into the mystery of 
the Universe, farther than another ; thou hadst in petto thy remarkable 
Volume on Clothes. Nay, was there not in that clear logically-founded 



* Gukguk is unhappily only an academical — beer. 



REMINISCENCES. 11 

Transcendentalism of thine ; still more, in thy meek, silent, deep-seated 
Sansculottism, combined with a true princely Courtesy of inward na- 
ture, the visible rudiments of such speculation 1 But great men are too 
often unknown, or what is worse, misknown. Already, when we 
dreamed not of it, the warp of thy remarkable Volume lay on the loom ; 
and, silently, mysterious shuttles were putting in the woof! 

How the Hofrath Heuschrecke is to furnish biographical data, in this 
case, may be a curious question ; the answer of which, however, is hap- 
pily not oar concern, but his. To us it appeared, after repeated trial, 
that, in Weissnichtwo, from the archives or memories of the best-in- 
formed classes, no Biography of Teafelsdrockh was to be gathered; 
not so much as a false one. He was a Stranger there, wafted thither 
by what is called the course of circumstances ; concerning whose pa- 
rentage, birth-place, prospects, or pursuits, Curiosity had indeed made 
inquiries, but satisfied herself with the most indistinct replies. For him- 
self, he was a man so still and altogether unparticipating, that to ques- 
tion him even afar off on such particulars was a thing of more than 
usual delicacy : besides, in his sly way, he had ever some quaint turn, 
not without its satirical edge, wherewith to divert such intrusions, and 
deter you from the like. Wits spoke of him secretly as if he were a 
kind of Melchizedek, without father or mother of any kind ; sometimes, 
with reference to his great historic and statistic knowledge, and the 
vivid way he had of expressing himself like an eye-witness of distant 
transactions and scenes, they called him the Evnge Jude, Everlasting, 
or as we say, Wandering Jew, 

To the most, indeed, he had become not so much a Man as a Thing; 
which thing doubtless they were accustomed to see, and with satisfac- 
tion ; but no more thought of accounting for than for the fabrication of 
their daily AUgemeine Zeitung, or the domestic habits of the Sun, Both 
were there and welcome ; the world enjoyed what good was in them, 
and thought no more of the matter. The man Teufelsdrockh passed 
and repassed, in his little circle, as one of those originals and nonde- 
scripts, more frequent in German Universities than elsewhere ; of whom, 
though you see them alive, and feel certain enough that they must have 
a History, no History seems to be discoverable ; or only such as men 
give of momitain rocks and antediluvian ruins : That they have been 
created by unknown agencies, are in a state of gradual decay, and for 
the present reflect light and resist pressure ; that is, are visible and tan- 
gible objects in this phantasm world, where so much other mystery is. 

It was to be remarked that though, by title and diploma. Professor der 
Allerley- Wissenschaft, or as we should say in English, " Professor of 
Things in General," he had never delivered any Course ; perhaps never 
been incited thereto by any public furtherance or requisition. To all 
appearance, the enlightened Government of Weissnichtwo, in founding 
their New University, imagined they had done enough, if "in times like 
ours," as the half-official Program expressed it, " when all things are, 
rapidly or slowly, resolving themselves into Chaos, a Professorship of 
this kind had been established ; whereby, as occasion called, the task of 
bodying somewhat forth again from such Chaos might be, even slightly, 
" facilitated." That actual Lectures should be held, and Public Classes 
for the " Science of Things in General," they doubtless considered pre- 
mature ; on which ground too they had only established the Professor- 
ship, nowise endowed it; so that Teufelsdrockh, " recommended by the 
highest names," had been promoted thereby to a Name merely. 

Great, among the more enlightened classes, was the admiration of thi» 
new Professorship : how an enlightened Government has seen into the 
Want of the Age {Zeitbedurfniss) ; how at length, instead of Denial 
and Destruction, we were to have a science of Affirmation and Recon- 



12 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

struction ; and Germany and Weissnichtwo were where they should be, 
in the vanguard of the world. Considerable also was the wonder at 
the new Professor, dropt opportunely enough into the nascent University ; 
so able to lecture, should occasion call ; so ready to hold his peace for 
indefinite periods, should an enlightened Government consider that oc- 
casion did not call. But such admiration and such wonder, being fol- 
lowed by no act to keep them living, could last only nine days ; and, 
long before our visit to that scene, had quite- died away. The more 
cunning heads thought it was all an expiring clutch at popularity, on 
the part of a Minister, whom domestic embarrassments, court intrigues, 
old age, and dropsy soon afterwards finally drove from the helm. 

As for Teufelsdrockh, except by his nightly appearances at the Gru- 
nen Ganse, Weissnichtwo saw little of him, felt little of him. Here, 
over his tumbler of Gukguk, he sat reading Journals ; sometimes con- 
templatively looking into the clouds of his tobacco-pipe, without other 
visible employment : always, from his mild ways, an agreeable pheno- 
menon there ; more especially when he opened his lips for speech ; on 
which occasions the whole CoflTee-house would hush itself into silence, 
as if sure to hear something noteworthy. Nay, perhaps to hear a whole 
series and river of the most memorable utterances ; such as, when once 
thawed, he would for hours indulge in, with fit audience : and the more 
memorable, as issuing from a head apparently not more interested in 
them, not more conscious of them, than is the sculptured stone head of 
some public Fountain, which through its brass mouth- tube emits water 
to the worthy and the unworthy ; careless whether it be for cooking 
victuals or quenching conflagrations ; indeed, maintains the same ear- 
nest assiduous look, whether any water be flowing or not. 

To the editor of these sheets, as to a young enthusiastic Englishman, 
however unworthy, Teufelsdrockh opened himself perhaps more than to 
the most. Pity only that we could not then half guess his importance, 
and scrutinise him with due power of vision ! We enjoyed, what not 
three men in Weissnichtwo could boast of, a certain degree of access to 
the Professor's private domicile. It was the attic floor of the highest 
house in the Wahngasse ; and might truly be called the pinnacle of 
Weissnichtwo, for it rose sheer above the contiguous roofs, themselves 
rising from elevated ground. Moreover, with its windows, it looked 
towards all the four Orte, or as the Scotch say, and we ought to say, 
Airts : the Sitting-room itself commanded three ; another came to view 
in the Schlafgemach (Bed-room) at the opposite end ; to say nothing of 
the Kitchen,which offered two, as it were, (kiplicates, and showing nothing 
new. So that it was in fact the speculum or watch-tower of Teufels- 
drockh ; wherefrom, sitting at ease, he might see the whole life-circula- 
tion of that considerable City ; the streets and lanes of which, with 
all their doing and driving ( Thun und Treiben), were for the most part 
visible there, 

" I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive," have we heard him 
say, "and witness their wax-laying and honey-making, and poison- 
brewing, and choking by sulphur. From the Palace esplanade, where 
music plays while Serene Highness is pleased to eat his victuals, down 
the low lane, where in her door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thin 
livelihood, sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see it all ; for, except the 
Schlosskirche weathercock, no biped stands so high. Couriers arrive 
bestrapped and bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged up in pouches 
of leather : there, topladen, and with four swift horses, rolls in the 
country Baron and his household ; here, on timber leg, the lamed Sol- 
dier hops painfully along, begging alms : a thousand carriages, and 
wains, and cars, come tumbling in with Food, with young Rusticity, 
and other Raw Produce, inanimate or animate, and go tumbling out 



REMINISCENCES. 13 

again with Produce manufactured. That living flood, pouring through 
these streets, of all qualities and ages, knowest thou whence it is com- 
ing, whither it is going '? Aits, der Ewigkcit, zu der Ewigkeit hin: 
From Eternity onwards to Eternity ! These are Apparitions : what else ! 
Are they not Souls rendered visible : in Bodies, that took shape and will 
lose it ; melting into air 1 Their solid pavement is a Picture of the 
Sense ; they walk on the bosom of Nothing, blank Time is behind them 
and before them. Or fanciest thou, the red and yellow Clothes-screen 
yonder, with spurs on its heels, and feather in its crown, is but of To- 
day, without a Yesterday or a To-morrow : and had not rather its 
Ancestor alive when Hengist and Horsa overran thy Island '? Friend, 
thou seest here a living link in that Tissue of History, which inweaves 
all Being : watch well, or it will be past thee, and seen no more," y 

" Ac/i, mein Lieber!'' said he once, at midnight, when we had return- 
ed from the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, "it is a true sublimity 
to dwell here. These fringes of lamplight, struggling up through smoke 
and thousand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of 
Night, what thinks Bootes of them, as he leads his hunting dogs over 
the Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire 1 That stifled hum of Midnight, 
when Traffic has lain down to rest ; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, 
still rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to 
Halls roofed in, and lighted to the due pitch for her ; and only Vice and 
Misery, to prowl or to moan like nightbirds, are abroad : that hum, I 
say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard in Hea- 
ven ! Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapors, and putrefactions, and 
imimaginable gases, what a Fermenting- vat lies simmering and hid ! 
The joyful and the sorrowful are there ; men are dying there, men are 
being born ; men are praying, — on the other side of a brick partition, 
men are cursing ; and around them all is the vast, void Night. The 
proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within 
damask curtains ; Wretchedness cowers into truckle-beds, or shivers 
hunger-stricken into his lair of straw : in obscure cellars, Rouge-et-Noir 
languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry Villains; while 
Councillors of State sit plotting, and playing their high-chess game, 
whereof the pawns are Men. The Lover whispers his mistress that the 
coach is ready; and she, full of hope and fear, glides down, to fly with 
him over the borders ; the Thief, still more silently, sets-to his picklocks 
and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen first snore in their 
boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, are full 
of light and music and high-swelling hearts ; but, in the Condemned 
Cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes 
look out through the darkness, which is around and within, for the light 
of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on the morrow : 
comes no hammering from the Rabenstein? — their gallows must even 
now be o' building. Upwards of five hundred thousand two-legged 
animals without feathers lie round us, in horizontal position ; their heads 
all in nightcaps, and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, 
and staggers and swaggers in his rank dens of shame ; and the Mother, 
with streaming hair, kneels over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked 
lips only her tears now moisten. All these heaped and huddled toge- 
ther, with nothing but a little carpentry and masonry between them ; — 
crammed in, like salted fish, in their barrel ; — or weltering, shall I say, 
like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed Vipers, each straggling to get its head 
above the others : such work goes on under that smoke-counterpane ! — 
but I, mein Werther, sit above it all ; I am alone with the Stars." 

We looked in his face to see whether, in the utterance of such extra- 
ordinary Night-thoughts, no feeling might be traced there ; but with the 
light we had, which indeed was only a single tallow-light, and far 



14 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

enough from the window, nothing save that old calmness and fixednesr 

was visible. 

These were the Professor's talking seasons : most commonly he spoke 
in mere monosyllables, or sat altogether silent, and smoked ; while the 
visitor had liberty either to say what he listed, receiving for answer an 
occasional grant; or to look round for a space, and then take himself 
away. It was a strange apartment ; full of books and tattered papers, 
and miscellaneous shreds of all conceivable substances, " united in a 
common element of dust." • Books lay on tables, and below tables ; here 
fluttered a sheet of manuscript, there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap 
hastily thrown aside : ink-bottles alternated with bread-crusts, coffee-pots, 
tobacco-boxes. Periodical Literature, and Blucher Boots. Old Leischen 
(Lisekin, 'Liza), who was his bed-maker and stove-lighter, his washer 
and wringer, cook, errand-maid, and general lion's-provider, and for the 
rest a very orderly creature, had no sovereign authority in this last cita- 
del of Teufelsdrockh ; only some once in the month, she half-forcibly 
made her way thither, with broom and duster, and (Teufelsdrockh 
hastily saving his manuscripts) effected a partial clearance, a jail-deli- 
very of such lumber as was not Literary. These were her Erdbebun- 
gen (Earthquakes), which Teufelsdrockh dreaded worse than the pesti- 
lence; nevertheless to such length he had been forced to comply. Glad 
would he have been to sit here philosophizing for ever, or till the litter, 
by accumulation, drove him out of doors : but Leischen was his right- 
arm, and spoon, and necessary of life, and would not be flatly gainsay- 
ed. "We can still remember the ancient woman ; so silent that some 
thought her dumb ; deaf also you would often have supposed her ; for 
Teufelsdrockh and Teufelsdrockh only would she serve or give heed 
to ; and with him she seemed to communicate chiefly by signs ; if it 
were not rather by some secret divination that she guessed all his wants, 
and supplied them. Assiduous old dame ! she scoured, and sorted, and 
swept in her kitchen, with the least possible violence to the ear ; yet all 
was tight and right there ; hot and black came the cofiee ever at the due 
moment ; and the speechless Leischen herself looked out on you, from 
under her clean white coif with its lappets, through her clean withered 
face and wrinkles, with a look of helpful intelligence, almost of 
benevolence. 

Few strangers, as above hinted, had admittance hither ; the only one 
we ever saw there, ourselves excepted, was the Hofrath Heuschrecke, 
already known, by name and expectation, to the readers of these pages. 
To us, at that period, Herr Heuschrecke seemed one of those purse- 
mouthed, crane-necked, clean-brushed, pacific individuals, perhaps suf- 
ficiently distinguished in society by this fact, that, in dry weather or in 
wet, " they never appear without their umbrella." Plad we not known 
with what " little wisdom" the world is governed ; and how, in Germany 
as elsewhere, the ninety and nine Public Men can for the most part be 
but mute train-bearers to the hundredth, perhaps but stalking horses and 
willing or unwilling dupes, — it might have seemed wonderful how Herr 
Heuschrecke should be named a Rath, or Councillor and Counsellor, 
even in Weissnichtwo. What counsel to any man, or to any woman, 
could this particular Hofrath give ; in whose loose, zigzag figure ; in 
whose thin yisage, as it went jerking to and fro, in minute incessant 
fluctuation,— you trace rather confusion worse confounded ; at most, 
Timidity and" physical CoW? Some indeed said withal, he was " the 
very Spirit of Love embodied :" blue earnest eyes, full of sadness and 
kindness ; purse ever open, and so forth ; the whole of which, we shall 
now hope for many reasons, was not quite groundless. Nevertheless, 
friend Teufeldrockh's outline, who indeed handled the burin like few 
in these cases, was probably the best : Er hat Gemuth imd Geist, hat 



CHARACTERISTICS. 15 

vjenigstens gehabt, dock ohne Organ, oline Schicksals-gunst ; ist gegen- 
wdrtig aber halb-zerruttet, halb-erstarrt, " He has heart and talent, at 
least has had such, yet without fit mode of utterance, or fa^^or of For- 
tune ; and so is now half-cracked, half-congealed." — What the Hofrath 
shall think of this when he sees it, readers may wonder : we, safe in the 
stronghold of Historical Fidelity, are careless. 

The main point, doubtless, for us all, is his love of Teufelsdrockh, 
which indeed was also by far the most decisive feature of Heuschrecke 
himself. We are enabled to assert that he hung on the Professor with 
the fondness of a Boswell for his Johnson. And perhaps with the like 
return ; for Teufelsdrockh treated his gaunt admirer with little outward 
regard, as some half-rational or altogether irrational friend, and at best 
loved him out of gratitude and by habil On the other hand, it was 
curious to observe with what reverent kindness, and a sort of fatherly 
protection, our Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and as he fondly ima- 
gined far more practically influential of the two, looked and tended on 
his little Sage, whom he seemed to consider as a living oracle. Let but 
Teufelsdrockh open his mouth, Heuschrecke's also unpuckered itself 
into a free doorway, besides his being all eye and all ear, so that no- 
thing might be lost : and then, at every pause in the harangue, he gur- 
gled out his pursy chuckle of a cough-laugh (for the machinery of 
laughter took some time to get in motion, and seemed crank and slack), 
or else his twanging, nasal Bravo ! Das glaub'' ich ; in either case by 
way of heartiest approval. In short, if Teufelsdrockh was Dalai-Lama, 
of which, except perhaps in his self-seclusion, and god-like Indiffer- 
ence, there was no symptom, then might Heuschrecke pass for his chief 
Talapoin, to whom no dough-pill he could knead and publish was other 
than medicinal and sacred. - 

In such environment, social, domestic, physical, did Teufelsdrockh, 
at the time of our acquaintance, and most likely does he still, live and 
meditate. Here, perched up in his high Wahngasse watchtower, and 
often, in solitude, outwatching the Bear, it was that the indomitable 
Inquirer fought all his battles with Dulness and Darkness ; here in all 
probability, that he wrote this surprising Volume on Clothes. Additional 
particulars : of his age, which was of that standing middle sort you 
could only guess at ; of his wide surtout ; the color of his trousers, 
fashion of his broad-brimmed steeple-hat, and so forth, we might report, 
but do not. The Wisest truly is, in these times, the Greatest ; so that 
an enlightened curiosity, leaving Kings and such like to rest very much 
on their own basis, turns more and more to the Philosophic Class : ne- 
vertheless, what reader expects that, with all our writing and reporting, 
Teufelsdrockh could be brought home to him, till once the Documents 
arrive 1 His Life, Fortunes, and Bodily Presence, are as yet hidden from 
us, or matter only of faint conjecture. But on the other hand, does not his 
Soul lie enclosed in this remarkable Volume, much more truly than 
Pedro Garcia's did in the buried Bag of Doubloons 1 To the Soul of 
Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, to his opinions namely on the " Origin and 
Influence of Clothes," we for the present gladly return. 



CHAPTER IV. 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes 
entirely contents us ; that it is not, like all works of Genius, like the very 
Sun, which, though tlie highest published Creation, or work of Genius, 
has nevertheless black spots and troubled nebulosities amid its efful- 



16 SARTOR RESARTTJS. 

gence, — a mixture of insight, inspiration, with dulness, double-vision, 
and even utter blindness. 

Without committing ourselves to those enthusiastic praises and pfo- 
phesyings of the Weisnichtwo' scke Anzeiger, we admitted that the Book 
had in a high degree excited us to self-activity, which is the best etfect 
of any book ; that it had even operated changes in our way of thought ; 
nay, that it promised to prove, as it were, the opening of a new mine- 
shaft, wherein the whole world of Speculation might henceforth dig to 
unknown depths. More specially it may now be declared that Professor 
Teufelsdrockh's acquirements, patience of research, philosophic and 
even poetic vigor, are here made indisputably manifest ; and imhappily 
no less his prolixity and tortuosity and manifold ineptitude ; that, on the 
whole, as in opening new mine-shafts is not unreasonable, there is much 
rubbish in his Book, though likewise specimens of almost invaluable 
ore. A paramount popularity in England we cannot promise him. 
Apart from the choice of such a topic as Clothes, too ofteh the manner 
of treating it betokens in the Author a rusticity and academic seclusion, 
unblameable, indeed inevitable in a German, but fatal to his success 
with our public. 

Of good society Teufelsdrockh appears to have seen little, or has 
mostly forgotten what he saw. He speaks out with a strange plainness ; 
calls many things by their mere dictionary names. To him the Uphol- 
sterer is no Pontiif, neither is any Drawing-room a Temple, were it 
never so begilt and overhung : " a whole immensity of Brussels carpets, 
and pier-glasses, and or-molu," as he himself expresses it, " cannot 
hide from me that such Drawing-room is simply a section of Infinite 
Space, where so many God-created Souls do for the time meet together." 
To Teufelsdrockh the highest Duchess is respectable, is venerable ; but 
nowise for her pearl-bracelets, and Malines laces : in his eyes, the star 
of a Lord is little less and little more than the broad button of Birming- 
ham spelter in a Clown's smock ; " each is an implement," he says, " in 
its kind ; a tag for hooking-together ; and, for the rest, was dug from the 
earth, and hammered on a stithy before smith's fingers." Thus does the 
Professor look in men's faces with a strange impartiality, a strange sci- 
entific freedom ; like a man unversed in the higher circles, like a man 
dropped thither from the Moon. Rightly considered, it is in this pecu- 
liarity, running through his whole system of thought, that all these short- 
comings, over-shootings, and multiform perversities, take rise : if indeed 
they have not a second source, also natural enough, in his Transcend- 
ental Philosophies, and humor of looking at all Matter and Material 
things as Spirit ; whereby truly his case were but the more hopeless, the 
more lamentable. 

To the Thinkers of this nation, however, of which class it is firmly 
believed there are individuals yet extant, we can safely recommend the 
Work : nay, who knows but among the fashionable ranks too, if it be 
true, as Teufelsdrockh maintains, that " within the most starched cra- 
vat there passes a windpipe and weasand, and under the thickliest em- 
broidered waistcoat beats a heart," — the force of that rapt earnestness 
may be felt, and here and there an arrow of the soul pierce through. In 
our wild Seer, shaggy, unkempt, like a Baptist living on locusts and 
wild honey, there is an untutored energy, a silent as it were unconscious 
strength, which, except in the higher walks of Literature, must be rare. 
Many a deep glance, and often with unspeakable precision, has he cast 
into mysterious Nature, and the still more mysterious Life of Man. 
Wonderful it is with what cutting words now and then, he severs asun- 
der the confusion ; sheers down, where it furlongs deep, into the true 
centre of the matter ; and there not only hits the nail on the head, but 
with crushing force smites it home and buries it. — On the other hand, 



CHARACTERISTICS. 17 

let us be free to admit, he is the most unequal writer breathing. Often 
after some such feat, he will play truant for long pages, and go dawd- 
ling and dreaming, and mumbling and maundering the merest common- 
places, as if he were asleep with eyes open, which indeed he is. 

Of his boundless learning, and how all reading and literature in most 
known tongues, from Sanconiatlion to Dr. Lingard, from your Oriental 
Shasters, and Talmuds, and Korans, with Cassini's Siamese Tables, and 
Laplace's Mecanique Celeste, down to Robinson Crusoe and the Belfast 
Toivn and Country Almanack, are familiar to him, we shall say nothing : 
for unexampled as it is with us, to the Germans such universality of 
study passes without wonder, as a thing commendable, indeed, but na- 
tural, indispensable, and there of course. A man that devotes his life to 
learning, shall he not be learned % 

In respect of style our Author manifests the same genial capability, 
marred too often by the same rudeness, inequality, and apparent want 
of intercourse with the higher classes. Occasionally, as above hinted, 
we find consummate vigor, a true inspiration : his burning Thoughts 
step forth in fit burning Words, like so many full-formed Minervas, 
issuing amid flame and splendor from Jove's head ; a rich idiomatic 
diction, picturesque allusions, fiery poetic emphasis, or quaint tricksy 
turns ; all the graces and terrors of a wild Imagination, wedded to the 
clearest Intellect, alternate in beautiful vicissiiude. Were it not that 
sheer sleeping and soporific passages ; circumlocutions, repetitions, touches 
even of pure doting jargon, so often intervene ! On the whole. Profes- 
sor Teufelsdrockh is not a cultivated writer. Of his sentences perhaps 
not more than nine-tenths stand straight on their legs ; the remainder 
are in quite angular attitudes, buttressed up by props (of parentheses and 
dashes), and ever, with this or the other tagrag hanging from them ; a 
few even sprawl out helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and 
dismembered. Nevertheless, in almost his very worst moods, there lies 
in him a singular attraction. A wild tone pervades the whole utterance 
of the man, like its keynote and regulator ; now screwing itself aloft as 
into the Song of Spirits, or else the shrill mockery of Fiends ;. now 
sinking in cadences, not without melodious heartiness, though some- 
times abrupt enough, into the common pitch, when we hear it only as a 
monotonous hum ; of which hum the true character is extremely diffi- 
cult to fix. Up to this hour we have never fully satisfied ourselves 
whether it is a tone and hum of real Humor, which we reckon among 
the very highest qualities of genius, or some echo of mere Insanity and 
Inanity, which doubtless ranks below the very lowest. 

Under a like difficulty, in spite even of our personal intercourse, do 
we still lie with regard to the Professor's moral feeling. Gleams of an 
ethereal Love burst forth from him, soft wailings of infinite Pity ; he 
could clasp the whole Universe into his bosom, and keep it warm ; it 
seems as if under that rude exterior there dwelt a very seraph. Then 
again he is so sly and still, so imperturbably saturnine ; shows such 
indifference, malign coolness towards all that men strive after ; and 
ever with some half- visible wrinkle of a bitter sardonic humor, if indeed 
it be not mere stolid callousness, — that you look on him almost with a 
shudder, as on some incarnate Mephistopheles, to whom this great ter- 
restrial and celestial Round, after all, were but some huge foolish Whirli- 
gig, where kings and beggars, and angels and demons, and stars and 
street-sweepings, were chaotically whirled, in which only children could 
take interest. His look, as we mentioned, is probably the gravest ever 
seen : yet it is not of that cast-iron gravity frequent enough among our 
OTvn Chancery suitors; but rather the gravity -as of some silent, high- 
encircled mountain-pool, perhaps the crater of an extinct volcano ; into 
whose black deeps you fear to gaze : those eyes, those lights that sparkle 
2* 



18 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

in it, may indeed be reflexes of the heavenly Stars, but perhaps also 
glances from the region of Nether Fire ! 

Certainly a most involved, self-secluded, altogether enigmatic nature, 
this of Teufelsdrockh ! Here, however, we gladly recall to mind that 
once we saw him laugh; once only, perhaps it was the first and last 
time in his life ; but then such a peal of laughter, enough to have 
awakened the Seven Sleepers ! It was of Jean Paul's doing : some 
single billow in that vast World-Mahlstrom of Humor, with its Heaven- 
kissing coruscations, which is now, alas, all congealed in the frost of 
Death ! The large-lDodied Poet and the small, both large enough in 
soul, sat talking miscellaneously together, the present Editor being pri- 
vileged to listen ; and now Paul, in his serious way, was giving one of 
those inimitable " Extra-harangues ;" and, as it chanced. On the Pro- 
posal for a Cast-metal King : gradually a light kindled in our Profes- 
sor's eyes and face, a beaming, mantling, loveliest light ; through those 
murky features, a radiant ever-young Apollo looked ; and he burst forth 
like the neighing of all Tattersall's — tears streaming down his cheeks, pipe 
held aloft, foot clutched into the air, — loud, long continuing, uncontrol- 
lable ; a laugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the whole 
man from head to heel. The present Editor, who laughed indeed, yet 
with measure, began to fear all was not right : however, Teufelsdrockh 
composed himself^ and sank into his old stillness ; on his inscrutable 
countenance there wa'=:, if anything, a slight look of shame ; and Rich- 
ter himself could not rouse him again. Readers who have any tincture 
of Psychology know how much is to be inferred from this ; and that no 
man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irre- 
claimably bad. How much lies in Laughter : the cypher-key, where- 
with we decipher the whole man ! Some men wear an everlasting bar- 
ren simper ; in the smile of others lies a cold glitter as of ice : the 
fewest are able to laugh, what can be called laughing, but only sniff and 
titter and snigger from the throat outwards ; or at best, produce some 
whiffling husky cachinnation, as if they were laughing through wool : 
of none such comes good. The man who cannot laugh is not only fit 
for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; but his whole life is already a 
treason and a stratagem. 

Considered as an Author, Herr Teufelsdrockh has one scarcely par- 
donable fault, doubtless his worst : an almost total want of arrangement. 
In this remarkable Volume, it is true, his adherence to the mere course 
of Time produces through the Narrative portions, a certain show of 
outward method ; but of true logical method and sequence there is too 
little. Apart from its multifarious sections and subdivisions, the Work 
naturally falls into two Parts ; a Historical-Descriptive, and a Philoso- 
phical-Speculative : but falls, unhappily, by no iirrn line of demarcation ; 
in that labyrinthic combination, each Part overlaps, and indents, and 
indeed runs quite through the other. Many sections are of a debateable 
rubric, or even quite nondescript and unnameable ; whereby the Book 
not only loses in accessibility, but too often distresses us like some mad 
banquet, wherein all courses had been confounded, and fish and flesh, 
soup and solid oyster-sauce, lettuces, Rhine-wine and French mustard, 
were hurled into one huge tureen or trough, and the hungry Public 
invited to help himself To bring what order we can out of this Chaos 
shall be part of our endeavor. 



THK WOKLD IN CLOTHES. 19 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 

" As Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Lmos,^^ observes our Professor, " so 
could I write a Spirit of Clothes ; thus with an Esprit des Loix, properly 
an Esprit de Coutumes, we should have an Esprit de Costumes. For 
neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man proceed by mere Acci- 
dent, but the hand is ever guided on by mysterious operations of the 
mind. In all his Modes and habilatory endeavors an Architectural Idea 
will be found lurking ; his Body and the Cloth are the site and materials 
whereon and whereby his beautified edifice of a Person is to be built. 
Whether he flow gracefully out in folded mantles, based on light san- 
dals ; tower up in high headgear, from amid peaks, spangles and bell- 
girdles ; swell out in starched ruffs, buckram, stuffings and monstrous 
tuberosities ; or girth himself into separate sections, and front the world 
an Agglomeration of four limbs, — will depend on the nature of such 
Architectural Idea : whether Grecian, Gothic, Later-Gothic, or alto- 
gether Modern, and Parisian or Anglo-Dandiacal. Again, what mean- 
ing lies in Color ! From the soberest drab to the high-flaming scarlet, 
spiritual idiosyncrasies unfold themselves in choice of Color: if the Cut 
betoken Intellect and Talent, so does the Color betoken Temper and 
Heart, In all which, among nations as among individuals, there is an 
incessant, indubitable, though infinitely complex working of Cause and 
Effect : every snip of the Scissors has been regulated and prescribed by 
ever-active influences, which doubtless to Intelligences of a superior 
order are neither invisible nor illegible. 

" For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and-Eflfect Philosophy of 
Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter-evening enter- 
tainment: nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, such Phi- 
losophies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough. Nay, what is 
your Montesquieu himself but a clever infant spelling Letters from a 
hierogiyphical prophetic Book, the lexicon of which lies in Eternity, in 
Heaven 1 — Let any Cause-and-Eflfect Philosopher explain, not why I 
wear such and such a Garment, obey such and such a Law ; but even 
why / am here, to wear and obey anything ! — Much, therefore, if not 
the whole, of that same Spirit of Clothes I shall suppress, as hypothetic- 
al, ineffectual, and even impertinent : naked Facts, and Deductions drawn 
therefrom in quite another than that omniscient style, are my humbler 
and proper province." 

Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh has nevertheless 
contrived to take in a well nigh boundless extent of field ; at least, the 
boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being indis- 
pensable, we shall here glance over his First Part only in the most cur- 
sory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by omnivo- 
rous learning, and utmost patience and fairness : at the same time, in its 
results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the Compilers 
of some Library of General, Entertaining, IJseful, or even Useless 
Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was it this 
Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had in view, when he recommend- 
ed us to that joint-stock vehicle of publication, " at present the glory of 
British Literature V If so, the Library Editors are welcome to dig in 
it for their ot\ti behoof. 

To the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig-leaves, and 
leads us into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, metaphorical, 
cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we shall content our- 
selves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still less have we to do 



20 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

with " Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, according to the Talmudists, he 
had before Eve, and who bore him, in that wedlock, the whole progeny 
of aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial Devils, — very needlessly, we think. On 
this portion of the work, with its profound glances into the Adam-Kad- 
mon, or Primeval Element, here strangely brought into relation wdth 
the Nifi and Muspel (Darkness and Light) of the antique North, it may 
be enough to say that its correctness of deduction and depth of Tai- 
mudic and Rabbinical lore has filled perhaps not the worst Hebraist in 
Britain with something like astonishment. 

But quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdrockh hastens from the 
Tower of Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the whole 
habitable and habilable globe. Walking by the light of Oriental, Pelas- 
gic, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient and Modern researches 
of every conceivable kind, he strives to give us in compressed shape (as 
the Niirnbergers give an Orbis Pictus) an Orbis Vestihcs ; or view of 
the costumes of all mankind, in all countries, in all times. It is here 
that to the Antiquarian, to the Historian, we can triumphantly say : 
Fall to ! Here is Learning : an irregular Treasury, if you will; but 
inexhaustible as the Hoard of King Nibelung, which twelve waggons 
in twelve days, at the rate of three journeys a day, could not carry ofi^. 
Sheepskin cloaks and wampum belts ; phylacteries, stoles, albs ; dial-, 
mides, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, trunk hose, leather 
breeches, Celtic philibegs (though breeches, as the name Gallia Braccata 
indicates, are the more ancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets, ruffs, 
fardingales, are brought vividly before us, — even the Kilmarnock night- 
cap is not forgotten. For most part, too., we must admit fhat the Learn- 
ing, heterogeneous as it is, and tumbled down quite pell-mell, is true 
concentrated and purified Learning, the drossy parts smelted out and 
thrown aside. 

Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes touching pictures 
of human life. Of this sort the following has surprised us. The first 
purpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth or de- 
cency, but ornament. " Miserable indeed," says he, " was the condition 
of the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, 
which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round him 
like a matted cloak ; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell. 
He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild fruits ; or, 
as the ancient Caledonian, squatted himself in morasses, lurking for his 
bestial or human prey ; without implements, without arms, save the ball 
of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole possession and defence might not 
be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited thongs ; thereby recover- 
ing as well as hurling it with deadly unerring skill. Nevertheless, the 
pains of Hunger and Revenge once satisfied, his next care was not 
Comfort but Decoration (Putz). Warmth he found in the toils of the 
chase ; or amid dried leaves, in his hollow tree, in his bark shed, or na- 
tural grotto : but for Decoration he must have Clothes. Nay, among 
wild people, we find tattooing and painting even prior to Clothes. The 
first spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration, as indeed we still 
see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries. 

" Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer ; loftiest Serene 
Highness; nay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rosebloom Maiden, 
worthy to glide sylphlike almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest 
as a divine Presence, which indeed, symbolically taken, she is, — has 
descended, like thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint-hurling Abo- 
riginal Anthropophagus ! Out of the eater cometh forth meat ; out of 
the strong cometh forth sweetness. What changes are wrought, not by 
Time, yet in Time ! For not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does 
or beholds, is in continual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vitality. 



THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 21 

^*' 

Cast forth thy Act, thy Word, into the ever-living, ever-working Uni- 
verse : it is a seed-grain that cannot die ; unnoticed to-day (says one) it 
will be found flourishing as a Banyan-grove (perhaps, alas, as a Hem- 
lock-forest !) after a thousand years. 

" He who first shortened the labor of Copyists by device of Movable 
Types was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering most Kings and 
Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic world: he had invented 
the Art of Printing. The first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and 
Charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling : what will 
the last do '? Achieve the final undisputed prostration of Force under 
Thought, of Animal Courage under Spiritual. A simple invention it 
was in the old-world Grazier, — sick of lugging his slow Ox about the 
country till he got it bartered for corn or oil, — to take a piece of Leather, 
and thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure of an Ox (or Pecus); put 
it in his pocket, and call it Pecwnia, Money. Yet hereby did Barter 
grow Sale, the Leather Money is now Golden and Paper, and all mira- 
cles have been out-miracled : for there are Rothschilds and English Na- 
tional Debts ; and whoso has sixpence is Sovereign (to the length of six- 
pence) over all men ; commands Cooks to feed him. Philosophers to 
leach him. Kings to mount guard over Mm, — to the length of sixpence. 
— Clothes too, which began in foolishest love of Ornament, what have 
they not become ! Increased Security, and pleasurable Heat soon fol- 
lowed: but what of these'? Shame, divine Shame {ScTiaam^ Modesty), 
as yet a stranger to the Anthropophagous bosom, arose there mysteriously 
under Clothes ; a mystic grove-encircled shrine for the Holy in man. 
Clothes gave us individuality, distinctions, social polity ; Clothes have 
made Men of us ; they are threatening to make Clothes-screens of us. 

" But on the whole," continues our eloquent Professor, " Man is a Tool- 
using Animal {Hmithierendes Thier). Weak in himself, and of small 
stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of some half 
square-foot, insecurely enough ; has to straddle out his legs, lest the very 
wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds ! Three quintals are a crush--j^'. 
ing load for him ; the Steer of the meadow tosses him aloft like a waste 
rag. Nevertheless he can use Tools, can devise Tools : with these the 
granite mountain melts into light dust before him j he kneads glowing 
iron, as if it were soft paste ; seas are his smooth highway, winds and 
fixe his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without Tools - 
without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all." 

Here may we not, for a moment, interrupt the stream of Oratory with 
a remark that this Definition of the Tool-using Animal appears to us, 
of all that Animal-sort, considerably the precisest and best^ Man is 
called a Laughing Animal : but do not the apes also laugh, or attempt 
to do it ; and is the manliest man the greatest and oftenest laugher ? 
Teufelsdrockh himself, as we said, laughed only once. Still less do we 
make of that other French Definition of the Cooking Animal ; which, 
indeed, for rigorous scientific purposes, is as good as useless. Can a 
Tartar be said to cook, when he only readies his steak by riding on if? 
Again, what Cookery does the Greenlander use, beyond stowing up his 
whale-blubber, as a marmot, in the like case, might do % Or how would 
Monsieur Ude prosper among those Orinocco Indians who, according 
to Humboldt, lodge in crow-nests, on the branches of trees ; and, for 
half the year, have no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole country being 
under water'? But on the other hand, show us the human being, of any 
period or climate, without his Tools : those very Caledonians, as we saw, 
had their Flint-ball, and Thong to it, such as no brute has or can have. 

" Man is a Tool-using animal," concludes Teufelsdrockh in his 
abrupt way ; " of which truth Clothes are but one example : and surely 
if we consider the interval between the first wooden Dibble fashioned by 



22 SAETOR RESAR.TTJS. 

man, and those Liverpool Steam-carriages, or the British House oi 
Commons, we shall note what progress he has made. He digs up cer- 
tain black stones from the bosom of the Earth, and says to them. Trans- 
port me^ and this luggage, at the rate of five-and-thirty miles an honr ; and 
they do it : he collects, apparently by lot, six hundred and fifty-eight 
miscellaneous individuals, and says to them. Make this nation toil for 
us, bleed for us, hunger, and sorroio, and sin for us ; and they do it," 



CHAPTER VI. 



APRONS. 



One of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Volume is that 
on Aprons. What though stout old Gao the Persian Blacksmith, " whose 
Apron, now indeed hidden under jewels, because raised in revolt which 
proved successful, is still the royal standard of that country;" what 
though John Knox's Daughter, " who threatened Sovereign Majesty 
that she would catch her Husband's head in her Apron, rather than he 
should lie and be a bishop ;" what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, 
with many other Apron worthies, — figure here 7 An idle wire-drawing 
spirit, sometimes even a tone of levity, approaching to conventional 
satire, is too clearly discernible. What, for example, are we to make 
of such sentences as the following '? 

'' Aprons are Defences; against injury to cleanliness, to safet)^, to mo- 
desty, sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of notched silk (as it 
were, the Emblem and iDcatified Ghost of an Apron), which some high- 
est-bred housewife, sitting at Niirnberg Workboxes and Toyboxes, has 
gracefully fastened on ; to the thick-tanned hide, girt round him with 
thongs, wherein the Builder builds, and at evening sticks his trowel ; or 
to those jingling sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise half-naked 
Vulcans hammer and smelt in their Smelt-furnace, — is there not range 
enough in the fashion and uses of this Vestment % How much has 
been concealed, how much has been defended in Aprons ! Nay, rightly 
considered, what is your whole Military and Police Establishment, 
charged at uncalculated millions, but a huge scarlet-colored, iron-fast- 
ened Apron, wherein Society works (uneasily enough) ; guarding itself 
from some soil and stithy-sparks, in this Devil's-smithy (^Teufels- 
schmiede) of a world % But of all Aprons the most puzzling to me 
hitherto has been the Episcopal, or Cassock. Wherein consists the use- 
fulness of this Apron '? The Overseer {Episcopus) of Souls, I notice, has 
tucked in the corner of it, as if his day's work were done ; what does 
he shadow forth thereby T' &c, &c. 

Or again, has it often been the lot of our readers to read such stuff as 
we shall now quote 7 

" I consider those printed Paper Aprons, worn by the Parisian Cooks, 
as a new vent, though a slight one, for Typography ; therefore as an 
encouragement to modern Literature, and deserving of approval : nor is 
it without satisfaction that I hear of a celebrated London Firm having 
in view to introduce the same fashion, with important extensions, in 
England." — We who are on the spot hear of no such thing ; and indeed 
have reason to be thankful that hitherto there are other" vents for our 
Literature, exuberant as it is. — Teufelsdrockh continues : " If such sup- 
ply of printed Paper should rise so far as to choke up the highways and 
public thoroughfares, new means must of necessity be had recourse to. 
In a Avorld existing by Industry, we grudge to employ Fire as a destroy- 
ing element, and not as a creating one. However, Heaven is omnipo- 
tent, and will find us an outlet. In the mean while, is it not beautiful 



MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 23 

to see five million quintals of Rags picked annually from the Lay-stall ; 
and annually, after being macerated, hot-pressed, printed on, and sold, — 
returned thither ; iilling so many hungry mouths by the way 1 Thus is 
the Laystall, especially with its Rags, or Clothes- rubbish, the grand 
Electric Battery, and Fountain-of-Motion, from which and to which the 
Social Activities (like vitreous and resinous Electricities) circulate, in 
larger or smaller circles, through the mighty, billowy, storm-tost Chaos 
of Life, which they keep alive !" — Such passages fill us, who love the 
man, and partly esteem him, with a very mixed feeling. 

Farther down we met with this : " The Journalists are now the true 
Kings and Clergy : henceforth Historians, unless they are fools, must 
write not of Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs ; but of 
Stamped Broad-sheet Dynasties, and quite new successive Names, 
according as this or the other Able Editor, or Combination of Able 
Editors, gains the world's ear. Of the British Newspaper Press, per- 
haps the most important of all, and wonderful enough in its secret con- 
stitution and procedure, a valuable descriptive History already exists, 
in that language, under the title of Satan^s Invisible World Displayed ; 
which, however, by search in all the Weissnichtwo Libraries, I have 
not yet succeeded in procuring (vermdchte nicht aufz^itreiben).'" 

Thus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus does Teu- 
felsdrockh, wandering in regions where he had little business, confound 
the old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, spurious, ima- 
ginary Historian of the Brittische Journalistik ; and so stumble on per- 
haps the most egregious blunder in Modern Literature ! 



CHAPTER VIL 

MISCELLANEOUS-mSTORICAL. 

Happier is our Professor, and more purely scientific and historic, 
when he reaches the Middle Ages in Europe, and down to the end of 
the Seventeenth Century ; the true era of extravagance in Costume. It is 
here that the Antiquary and student of Modes comes upon his richest 
harvest. Fantastic garbs, beggaring all fancy of a Teniers or a Callot, 
succeed each other, like monster devouring monster in a Dream. The 
whole too in brief authentic strokes, and touched not seldom with that 
breath of genius whichmakes even old raiment alive. Indeed, so learned, 
precise, graphical, and every way interesting have we found these Chap- 
ters, that it may be thrown out as a pertinent question for parties con- 
cerned. Whether or not a good English Translation thereof might hence- 
forth be profitably incorporated with Mr. Merrick's valuable Work O/i 
Ancient Armor? Take, by way of example, the following sketch; as 
authority for which Paulinus's Zeitkurzende Lust (ii. G78) is, with 
seeming confidence, referred to : 

" Did we behold the German fashionable dress of the Fifteenth Cen- 
tury, we might snwle ; as perhaps those bygone Germans, were they to 
rise again, and see our haberdashery, would cross themselves, and 
invoke the Virgin. But happily no bygone German, or man, rises again ; 
thus the Present is not needlessly trammelled with the Past ; and only 
grows out of it, like a Tree, whose roots are not intertangled with its 
branches, but lie peaceably imder ground. Nay, it is very mournful, 
yet not useless, to see and know, how the Greatest and Dearest, in a 
short, while would find his place quite filled up here, and no room for 
him ; the very Napoleon, the very Byron, in some seven years, has 
become obsolete, and were now a foreigner to his Europe. Thus is the 



24 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

Law of Progress secured ; and in Clothes, as in all other external things 
whatsoever, no fashion will continue. 

" Of the military classes in those old times, whose buff-belts, compli- 
cated chains and gorgets, huge churn-boots, and other riding and fight- 
ing gear have been bepainted in modern Romance, till the whole has 
acquired somewhat of a signpost character, — I shall here say nothing : 
the civil and pacific classes, less touched upon, are wonderlul enough 
for us, 

"Rich men, I find, have TeusinJce'^ (a perhaps untranslateable arti- 
cle); "also a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells; so that when a 
man walks it is with continual jingling. Some few, of musical turn, 
have a whole chime of bells {Glockenspiel) fastened there; which espe- 
cially, in sudden whirls, and the other accidents of walking, has a grate- 
ful eifect. Observe, too, how fond they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch in- 
tersections. The male world wears peaked caps, an ell-long, which 
hang bobbing over the side {scMef) : their shoes are peaked in front, also 
to the length of an ell, and laced on the side with tags ; even the wooden 
shoes have their ell-long noses : some also clap bells on the peak. Far- 
ther according to my authority, the men have breeches without seat 
{ohne Gesdss) : these they fasten peakwise to their shirts ; and the long 
round doublet must overlap them. 

" R-ich, maidens again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped out behind and 
before, so that back and breast are almost bare. Wives of quality, on 
the other hand, have train-gowns four or five ells in length ; which trains 
there are boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras sailing in their silk-cloth 
Galley, with a Cupid for steersm.an ! Consider their welts, a hand 
breadth thick, which waver round them by way of a hem ; the long flood 
of silver buttons, or rather silver shells, from throat to shoe, wherewith 
these same welt-gowns are buttoned. The maidens have bound silver 
snoods about their hair, with gold spangles, and pendent flames (Mam- 
men), that is, sparkling hair-drops : but of their mother's headgear who 
shall speak 7 Neither in love of grace is comfort forgotten. In winter 
weather you behold the whole fair creation (who can afford it) in long 
mantles, with skirts wide below, and, for hem, not one but two sufficient 
handbroad welts : all ending atop in a thick well-starched Ruff", some 
twenty inches broad : these are their Ruff'-mantles {Kragenmantel), 

" As yet, among the womankind hoop-petticoats are not ; but the men 
have doublets of fustian, under which lie multiple ruffs of cloth, pasted 
together with batter {mit Teig ziisammcngeJdeistert), which create protu- 
berance enough. Thus do the two sexes vie with each other in the art 
of Decoration ; and as usual the stronger carries it." 

Our Professor, whether he have Humor himself or not, manifests a 
certain feeling of the Ludicrous, a sly observance of it, which, could 
emotion of any kind be confidently predicated of so still a man, we might 
call a real love. None of those bell-girdles, bushel-breeches, cornuted 
shoes, or other the like phenomena, of which the History of Dress offers 
so many, escape him; more especially the mischances, or striking 
adventures, incident to the wearers of such, are noticed with due fidelity. 
Sir Walter Raleigh's fine mantle, which he sprea#in the mud under 
Clueen Elizabeth's feet, appears to provoke little enthusiasm in him ; he 
merely asks, Whether at that period the Maiden Clueen " was red- 
painted on the nose, and white-painted on the cheeks, as her tirewomen, 
when from spleen and wrinkles she would no longer look in any glass, 
were wont to serve her V We can answer that Sn- Walter knew well 
what he was doing, and had the Maiden Glueen been stuffed parchment 
dyed in verdigris, would have done the same. 

Thus too, treating of those enormous habiliments, that were not only 
slashed and galooned, but artificially swollen out on the broader par-ts 



THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 25 

of the body, by introduction of Bran, our Professor fails not to com- 
ment on that luckless Courtier, who having seated himself on a chair 
with some projecting nail on it, and therefrom rising, to pay his devoir 
on the entrance of Majesty, instantaneously emitted several pecks of 
dry wheat-dust : and stood there diminished to a spindle, his galoons and 
slashes dangling sorrowful and flabby round him. Whereupon the Pro- 
fessor publishes this reflection : 

" By what strange chances do we live in History ! Erostratus by a 
torch ; Milo by a bullock ; Henry Darnley, an unfledged booby and 
bustard, by his limbs ; most Kings and Clueens by being born under such 
and such a bed-tester ; Boileau Despreaux (according to Helvetius) by 
the peck of a turkey ; and this ill-starred individual by a rent in hi?, 
breeches, — for no Memoirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits him. Vain, 
was the prayer of Themistocles for a talent of Forgetting : my Friends, 
yield cheerfully to Destiny, and read since it is written," — Has Teufels- 
drockh to be put in mind that, nearly related to the impossible talent of 
Forgetting, stands that talent of Silence, which even travelling English- 
men manifest 1 

" The simplest costume," observes our Professor, " which I anywhere 
find alluded to in History, is that used as regimental, by Bolivar's Ca- 
valry, in the late Columbian wars. A square Blanket, twelve feet in 
diagonal, is provided (some were wont to cut oft' the corners, and make 
it circular) : in the centre a slit is effected eighteen inches long ; through 
this the mother-naked Trooper introduces his head and neck ; and so 
rides shielded from all weather, and in battle from many strokes (for he 
rolls it about his left arm) ; and not only dressed, but harnessed and 
draperied." 

With which picture of a State of Nature, affecting by its singularity, 
and Old-Roman contempt of the superfluous, we shall quit this part of 
our subject. 



CHAPTER VIIL 



THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 



If in the Descriptive-Historical Portion of this Volume, Teufelsdrockh, 
discussing merely the Werden (Origin and successive Improvement) of 
Clothes, has astonished many a reader, much more will he in the Specu- 
lative-Philosophical Portion, which treats of their Wirkcn, or Influences. 
It is here that the present Editor first feels the pressure of his task ; for 
here properly the higher and new Philosophy of Clothes commences : 
an untried, almost inconceivable region, or chaos : in venturing upon 
which, how difficult, yet how unspeakably important is it to know what 
course, of survey and conquest, is the true one ; where the footing is 
firm substance and will bear us, where it is hollow, or mere cloud, and 
may engulf us ! Teufelsdrockh undertakes no less than to expound the 
moral, political, even religious Influences of Clothes ; he undertakes to 
make manifest, in its thousandfold bearings, this grand Proposition, that 
Man's earthly interests are " all hooked and buttoned together, and 
held up, by "Clothes." He says in so many words, "Society is 
founded upon Cloth;" and again, "Society sails through the Infini- 
tude on Cloth, as on a Faust's Mantle, or rather like the Sheet of clean 
and unclean beasts in the Apostle's Dream ; and without such Sheet or 
Mantle, would sink to endless depths, or mount to inane limboes, and in 
either case be no more." 

By what chains, or indeed infinitely complected tissues of Meditation 
this "grand Theorem is here unfolded, and innumerable practical Corol- 
3 



26 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

laries are drawn therefrom, it were perhaps a mad ambition to attempt 
exhibiting. Our Professor's method is not, in any case, that of common 
school Logic, where the truths all stand in a row, each holding by the 
skirts of the other ; but at best that of practical Reason, proceeding by 
large Intuition over whole systematic groups and kingdoms ; whereby, 
we might say, a noble complexity, almost like that of Nature, reigns in 
his Philosophy, or spiritual Picture of Nature : a mighty maze, yet, as 
faith whispers, not without a plan. Nay, we complained above, that a 
certain ignoble complexity, what we must call mere confusion, was also 
discernible. Often, too, must we exclaim: Would to Heaven those 
same Biographical Documents were come! For it seems as if the 
demonstration lay much in the Author's individuality ; as if it were not 
Argument that had taught him, but Experience. At present, it is only in 
local glimpses, and by significant fragments, picked often at wide 
enough intervals from the original Volume, and carefully collated, that 
we can hope to impart some outline or foreshadow of this Doctrine. 
Readers of any intelligence are once more invited to favor us with their 
most concentrated attention : let these, after intense consideration, and not 
till then, pronounce. Whether on the utmost verge of our actual horizon 
there is not a looming as of Land ; a promise of new Fortunate Islands, 
perhaps whole undiscovered Americas, for such as have canvass to sail 
thither 1 — As exordium to the whole, stand here the following long 
citation : 

" With men of a speculative turn," v/rites Teufelsdrockh, " there 
come seasons, meditative, sweet, yet awful hours, when in wonder and 
fear you ask yourself that unanswerable question : Who am /; the 
thing that can say " I " {das Wesen das sich Ich nennt)1 The world, 
with its loud trafficking, retires into the distance ; and, through the 
paper-hangings, and stone walls, and thick-plied tissues of Commerce 
and Polity, and all the living and lifeless Integuments (of Society and a 
Body), wherewith your Existence sits surrounded, the sight reaches forth 
into the void Deep, and you are alone with the Universe, and silently 
, commune with it, as one mysterious presence with another. 
K " Who am I ; what is this Me 1 A Voice, a Motion, an Appearance ;— 
some embodied, visualised Idea in the Eternal Mind 1 Cogito, ergo sum. 
Alas, poor Cogitator, this takes us but a little way. Sure enough, I am ; 
and lately was not : but Whence ? How 1 Whereto 1 The answer 
lies around, written in all colors and motions, uttered in all tones of 
jubilee and wail, in thousand-figured, thousand- voiced, harmonious Na- 
ture : but where is the cunning eye and ear to whom that God- written 
Apocalypse will yield articulate meaning "? We sit as in a boimdless 
Phantasmagoria and Dream-grotto ; boundless, for the faintest star, the 
remotest century, lies not even nearer the verge thereof: sounds and 
many-colored visions flit round our sense ; but Him, the Unslumbering, 
whose work both Dream and Dreamer are, we see not ; except in rare 
half-waking moments, suspect not. Creation, says one, lies before us, 
like a glorious rainbow ; but the Sun that made it lies behind us, hidden 
from us. Then, in that strange Dream, how we clutch at shadows as 
if they were substances ; and sleep deepest while fancying ourselves 
most awake ! Which of your Philosophical Systems is other than a 
dream theorem ; a net quotient, confidently given out, where divisor and 
dividend are both unknown? What are all your national Wars, 
with their Moscow Retreats, and sanguinary hate-filled Revolutions, but 
the Somnambulism of uneasy Sleepers 1 This Dreaming, this Som- 
nambulism is what we on Earth call Life ; wherein the most indeed 
undoubtingly wander, as if they knew right hand from left 5 yet they 
only are wise who know that they know nothing, at 
" Pity that ail Metaphysics had hitherto proved so inexpressibly un- 



THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 27 

productive ! The secret of Man's Being is still like the Sphinx's secret: 
a riddle that he cannot rede ; and for ignorance of which he suffers 
death, the worst death, a spiritual. What are your Axioms, and Cate- 
gories, and Systems, and Aphorisms 1 Words, words. High Air-cas- 
tles are cmmingly built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good 
Logic-mortar ; wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge. 
The ivhole is greater than the part : how exceedingly true ! Nature ab- 
hors a vacuum : how exceedingly false and calumnious ! Again, Noth- 
ing can act but where it is : with all my heart ; only where is it % Be 
not the slave of Words : is not the Distant, the Dead, while I love it, 
and long for it, and mourn for it. Here, in the genuine sense, as truly as 
the floor I stand on 1 But that same Where, with its brother When, 
are from the first the master-colors of our Dream-grotto ; say rather, the 
Canvass (the warp and woof thereof) whereon all our Dreams and 
Life-visions are painted. Nevertheless, has not a deeper meditation 
taught certain of every climate and age, that the Where and When, so 
mysteriously inseparable from all our thoughts, are but superficial ter- 
restrial adhesions to thought ; that the Seer may discern them where 
they mount up out of the celestial Everywhere and For ever : have not 
all nations conceived their God as Omnipresent and Eternal ; as exist- 
ing in a universal Here, an everlasting Now 7 Think well, thou too 
wilt find that Space is but a mode of our human Sense, so likewise 
Time ; there is no Space and no Time : We are — we know not what ; 
— light-sparkles floating in the Eether of Deity ! 

" So that this so solid-seeming World, after all, were but an air-image, 
our Me the only reality : and Nature, with its thousandfold production 
and destruction, but the reflex of our own inward Force, the "phantasy 
of our Dream;" or what the Earth-Spirit in Faust names it, the living 
visible Garment of God ; 

" ' In Being's floods, in Action's storm, A seizing and giving 

I waik and work, above, beneath. The fire of the Living : 

Work and weave in endless motion ! 'Tis tlius at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, 

Birth and Death, And weave for God the Garment thou seest 
An infinite ocean ; Him by.' 

" Of twenty millions that have read and spouted this thunder-speech of 
the Erdgeist, are there yet twenty units of us that have learned the 
meaning thereof?" 

" It was in some such mood, when wearied and foredone with these 
high speculations, that I first came upon the question of Clothes. Strange 
enough, it strikes me, is this same fact of there being Tailors and Tail- 
ored. The Horse I ride has his own whole fell : strip him of the girths and 
flaps and extraneous tags I have fastened round him, and the noble 
creature is his own sempster and weaver and spinner : nay his own boot- 
maker, jeweller, and man-milliner ; he bounds free through the valleys, 
with a perennial rainproof court-suit on his body ; wherein warmth and 
easiness of fit have reached perfection ; nay, the graces also have been 
considered, and frills and fringes, with gay variety of color, featly ap- 
pended, and ever in the right place, are not wanting. While I — good 
Heaven ! — have thatched myself over with the dead fleeces of sheep, the 
bark of vegetables, the entrails of worms, the hides of oxen or seals, the 
felt of furred breasts ; and walk abroad a moving Rag-screen, overheaped 
with shreds and tatters raked from the Charnel-house of Nature, where 
they would have rotted, to rot on me more slowly ! Day after day, I 
must thatch myself anew; day after day, this despicable thatch m.ust 
lose some film of its thickness ; some film of it, frayed away by tear and 
wear, must be brushed off into the Ashpit, into the Laystall ; till by de- 
grees the whole has been brushed thither, and I, the dust-making, patent 
Rag-grinder, get new material to grind down. O subterbrutish ! vile ! 



28 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

most vile ! For have not I too a compact all-enclosing Skin, whiter or 
dingier 1 Am I a botched mass of tailors' and cobblers' shreds, then ; 
or a tightly-articulated, homogeneous little Figure, automatic, nay alive '? 

" Strange enough how creatures of the human-kind shut their eyes to 
plainest facts ; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, live 
at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is and 
was always, a blockhead and dallard ; much readier to feel and digest, 
than to think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his 
absolute lawgiver ; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him by the 
nose: thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World 
happen twice, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy, or notice- 
able. Perhaps not once in a lifetime does it occur to your ordinary 
biped, of any country or generation, be he gold-mantled Prince or rus- 
set-jerkined Peasant, that his Vestments and his Self are not one and 
indivisible ; that he is naked, without vestments, till he buy or steal such, 
and by forethought sew and button them, 

" For my own part, these considerations, of our Clothes-thatch, and 
how, reaching inwards even to our heart of hearts, it tailorises and de- 
moralises us, fill me with a certain horror at myself and mankind ; al- 
most as one feels at those Dutch Cows, which, during the wet season, 
you see grazing deliberately with jackets and petticoats (of striped sack- 
ing), in the meadows of Gouda, Nevertheless there is something great 
in the moment when a man first strips himself of adventitious wrap- 
pages ; and sees indeed that he is naked, and, as Swift has it, ' a forked 
straddling animal with bandy legs ;' yet also a Spirit, and unutterable 
Mystery of Mysteries," 



CHAPTER IX. 



ADAMITISM. 



Let no courteous reader take offence at the opinions broached in the 
conclusion of the last Chapter, The Editor himself, on first glancing 
over that singular passage, was inclined to exclaim : What, have we 
got not only a Sansculottist, but an enemy to Clothes in the abstract ? 
A new Adamite, in this century, which flatters itself that it is the Nine- 
teenth, and destructive both to Superstition and Enthusiasm 1 

Consider, thou foolish Teufelsdrockh, what benefits unspeakable all' 
ages and sexes derive from Clothes. For example, when thou thyself, 
a watery, pulpy, slobbery freshman and new-comer ia this Planet, sat- 
test muling and puking in thy nurse's arms ; sucking thy coral, and 
looking forth into the world in the blankest manner, what hadst thou 
been, without thy blankets, and bibs, and other nameless hulls 1 A ter- 
ror to thyself and mankind ! Or hast thou forgotten the day when thou 
first receivedst breeches, and thy long clothes became short % The vil- 
lage where thou livedst was all apprised of the fact ; and neighbor after 
neighbor kissed thy pudding cheek, and gave thee, as handsel, silver or 
copper coins, on that the first gala-day of thy existence. Again, Avert 
not thou, at one period of life, a Buck, or Blood, or Macaroni, or In- 
croyable, or Dandy, or by whatever name, according to year and place, 
such phenomenon is distinguished ? In that one word lie included mys- 
terious volumes. Nay, now when the reign of folly is over, or altered, 
and thy clothes are not for triumph but for defence, hast thou always 
worn them perforce, and as a consequence of Man's Fall ; never rejoiced 
in them as in a warm movable House, a Body round thy Body, wherein 
that strange Thee of thine sat snug, defying all variations of Climate 1 
Girt with thick double-milled kerseys; half-buried under shawls and 



ADAMITISM. 29 

broadbrims, and overalls and mudboots, thy very fingers cased in doe- 
skin and mittens, thou hast bestrode that " Horse 1 ride;" and, though it 
were in wild winter, dashed through the world, glorying in it as if thou 
wert its lord. In vain did the sleet beat round thy temples ; it lighted 
only on thy impenetrable, felted or woven, case of wool. In vain did 
the winds howl, — forests sounding and creaking, deep calling unto deep, 
— and the storms heap themselves together into one huge Arctic whirl- 
pool : thou flewest through the middle thereof, striking fire from the 
highway; wild music hummed in thy ears, thou too wert as a " sailor of 
ihe air," the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds was thy element 
and propitiously wafting tide. Without Clothes, without bit or saddle, 
what hadst thou been; what had thy fleet quadruped been'? — Nature is 
good, but she is not the best : here truly was the victory of Art over Na- 
ture. A thunderbolt indeed might have pierced thee ; all short of this 
thou couldst defy. 

Or, cries the courteous reader, has your Teufelsdrockh forgotten what 
he said lately about " Aboriginal Savages," and their " condition mise- 
rable indeed V Would he have all this unsaid ; and us betake ourselves 
again to the " matted cloak," and go sheeted in a " thick natural fell T' 

Nowise, courteous reader ! The Professor knows full well what he 
is saying ; and both thou and we, in our haste, do him wrong. If 
Clothes, in these times, " so tailorise and demoralise us," have they no 
redeeming value ; can they not be altered to serve better; must they of 
necessity be tluown to the dogs 1 The truth is, Teufelsdrockh, though 
a Sansculottist, is no Adamite : and much, perhaps, as he might wish to 
go forth before this degenerate age " as a Sign," would nowise wish to 
do it, as those old Adamites did, in a state of Nakedness. The utility 
of Clothes is altogether apparent to him : nay, perhaps he has an insight 
into their more recondite, and almost mystic qualities, what we might 
call the omnipotent virtue of Clothes, such as was never before vouch- 
safed to any man. For example : • 

" You see two individuals," he writes, " one dressed in fine Red, the 
other in coarse threadbare Blue : Red says to Blue, ' Be hanged and 
anatomised ;' Blue hears with a shudder, and (O wonder of wonders !) 
marches sorrowfully to the gallows ; is there noosed up, vibrates his 
hour, and the surgeons dissect him, and fit his bones into a skeleton for 
medical purposes. How is this ; or what make ye of your Nothing can 
act but where it is ? Red has no physical hold of Blue, no clutch of him, 
is nowise in contact with him : neither are those ministering Sheriffs 
and Lord-Lieutenants and Hangmen and Tipstaves so related to com- 
manding Red, that he can tug them hither and thither ; but each stands 
distinct within his own skin. Nevertheless, as it is spoken, so is it 
done : the articulated Word sets all hands in Action ; and Rope and 
Improved-drop perform their work. 

" Thinking reader, the reason seems to me twofold; First, that Man 
is a Spirit, and bound by invisible bonds to All Men ; Secondly, that he 
wears Clothes, which are the visible emblems of that fact. Has not your 
Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel skins, and a plush 
gown : whereby all mortals know that he is a Judge '?— Society, which 
the more I think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon Cloth, 

" Often in my atrabiliar moods, when I read of pompous ceremonials, 
Frankfort Coronations, Royal Drawing-rooms, Levees, Couchees ; and 
how the ushers and macers and pursuivants are all in waiting ; how- 
Duke this is presented by Archduke that, and Colonel A by General B, 
and innumerable Bishops, Admirals, and miscellaneous Functionaries, 
are advancing gallantly to the Anointed Presence; and I strive, in my 
remote privacy, to form a clear picture of that solemnity,— on a sudden, 
as by some enchanter's wand, the— shall I speak if?— the Clothes fly off' 
3* 



30 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

the whole dramatic corps ; and Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, 
Anointed Presence itself, every mother's son of them, stand straddling 
there, not a shirt on them ; and I know not whether to laugh or weep. 
This physical or psychical infirmity, in which perhaps I am not singu- 
lar, I have, after hesitation, thought right to publish, for the solace of 
those afflicted with the like." 

Would to Heaven, say we, thou hadst thought right to keep it secret ! 
Who is there now that can read the five columns of Presentations in his 
Morning Newspaper without a shudder'? Hypochondriac men, and all 
men are to a certain extent hypochondriac, should be more gently treated . 
With what readiness our fancy, in this shattered state of the nerves, fol- 
lows out the consequences which Teufelsdrockh, with a devilish cool- 
ness, goes on to draw : 

" What would Majesty do, could such an accident befall in reality; 
should the buttons all simultaneously start, and the solid wool evaporate, 
in very Deed, as here in Dream 1 Ach Gott ! How each skulks into 
the nearest hiding-place ; their high State Tragedy {Haupt- und Staats- 
Action) becomes a Pickleherring-Farce to weep at, which is the worst 
kind of Farce ; the tables (according to Horace), and with them, the 
whole fabric of Government, Legislation, Property, Police, and Civil- 
ized Society, are dissolved, in wails and howls." 

Lives the man that can figure a naked Duke of Windlestraw address- 
ing a naked House of Lords 1 Imagination, choked as in Mephitic air, 
recoils on itself, and will not forward with the picture. The Woolsack, 
the Ministerial, the Opposition Benches — infandum ! infandum I And 
yet why is the thing impossible % Was not every soul, or rather every 
body, of these Guardians of our Liberties, naked, or nearly so, last 
night ; " a forked Radish with a head fantastically carved T' And why 
might he not, did our stern Fate so order it, walk out to St. Stephen's, as 
well as into bed, in that no-fashion ; and there, with other similar Ra- 
dishes, hold a Bed of Jisnetice 1 " Solace those afflicted with the like !" 
Unhappy Teufelsdrockh, had man ever such a " physical or psychical 
infirmity" before 1 And now how many, perhaps, may thy unparalleled 
confession (which we, even to the sounder British v/orld. and goaded on 
by Critical and Biographical duty, grudge to re-impart) incurably 
infect therewith ! Art thou the malignest of Sansculottists, or only the 
maddest % 

" It will remain to be examined," adds the inexorable Teufelsdrockh, 
"in how far the Scarecrow, as a Clothed Person, is not also entitled to 
benefit of clergy, and English trial by jury : nay, perhaps, considering 
his high function (for is not he too a Defender of Property, and Sove- 
reign armed with the terrors of the Law 1), to a certain royal Immunity 
and Inviolability ; which, however, misers and the meaner class of per- 
sons are not always voluntarily disposed to grant him." * * 

* * " O my Friends, we are (in Yorick Sterne's words) but as 
" turkeys driven, with a stick and red clout, to the market :" or if some 
drivers, as they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas in it, the 
rattle thereof terrifies the boldest ! " 



CHAPTER X. 



PURE REASON. 



It must now be apparent enough that our Professor, as above hinted, 
is a speculative Radical, and of the very darkest tinge ; acknowledging, 
for most part, in the solemnities and paraphernalia of civilized Life, 
which we make so much of, nothing but so many Cloth-rags, turkey- 



PURE KEASON. 31 

poles, and " Bladders with dried Peas." To linger among such specula- 
tions, longer than mere Science requires, a discerning public can have no 
wish. For our purposes the simple fact that such a Naked World is 
possible, nay, actually exists (under the Clothed one), will be sufficient. 
Much, therefore, we omit about " Kings wrestling naked on the green 
with Carmen," and the Kings being thrown: "dissect them with scal- 
pels," says Teafelsdrockh ; " the same viscera, tissues, livers, lights, and 
other Life-tackle are there : examine their spiritual mechanism ; the 
same great Need, great Greed, and little Faculty ; nay, ten to one but the 
Carman who understands draught-cattle, the rimming of wheels, some- 
thing of the laws of unstable and stable equilibrium, with other branches 
of waggon-science, and has actually put forth his hand and operated on 
Nature, is the more cunningly gifted of the two. Whence, then, their 
so unspeakable difference '? From Clothes." Much also we shall omit 
aboat confusion of Ranks, and Joan and My Lady, and how it would 
be everywhere "Hail fellow well met," and Chaos were come again: all 
which to any one that has once fairly pictured out the grand mother-idea, 
Society in a State of Nakedness, will spontaneously suggest itself. Should 
some sceptical individual still entertain doubts whether in a "World 
without Clothes, the smallest Politeness, Polity, or even Police, could 
exist, let him turn to the original Volume, and view there the boundless 
Serbonian Bogs of Sansculottism, stretching soLir and pestilential: over 
which we have lightly flown ; where not only whole armies but whole 
nations might sink ! If indeed the following argument, in its brief 
ri vetting emphasis, be not of itself incontrovertible and final: 

" Are we Opossums ; have we natural Pouches, like the Kangaroo ? 
Or how, without Clothes, could we possess the master-organ, soul's-seat, 
and true pineal gland of the Body Social : I mean, a Purse ?' 

Nevertheless, it is impossible to hate Professor Teufelsdrockh ; at worst, 
one knows not whether to hate or to love him. For though in looking 
at the fair tapestry of human Life, with its royal and even sacred figures, 
he dwells not on the obverse alone, but here chiefly on the reverse ; and 
indeed turns out the rough seams, tatters, and manifold thrums of that 
unsightly wrong-side, with an almost diabolic patience and indifference, 
which must have sunk him in the estimation of most readers,— there is 
that within which unspeakably distinguishes Mm from all other past 
and present Sanscalottists. The grand unparalleled peculiarity of Teu- 
felsdrockh is, that with all his Descendentalism, he combines a Trans- 
cendentalism no less superlative ; whereby if on the one hand he degrade 
man below most animals, except those jacketted Gouda Cows, he, on the 
other, exalts him beyond the visible Heavens, almost to an equality with 
the gods. 

" To the eye of vulgar Logic," says he, " what is man 1 An omni- 
vorous Biped that wears Breeches. To the eye of Pure Reason what is 
he '? A Soul, a Spirit, and divine Apparition. Round his mysterious 
Me, there lies, under all those wool-rags, a Garment of Flesh (or of Sen- 
ses), contextured in the Loom of Heaven ; whereby he is revealed to 
his like, and dwells with them in Union and Division ; and sees and 
fashions for himself a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces, and long 
Thousands of Years. Deep-hidden is he under that strange Garment"; 
amid Sounds and Colors and Forms, as it were, swathed in, and inextri- 
cably overshrouded: yet it is skywoven, and worthy of a God. Stands 
he not thereby in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities ? 
He feels ; power has been given him to Know, to Believe ; nay does 
not the spirit of Love, free in its celestial primeval brightness, even here, 
though but for moments, look through '? Well said Saint Chrysostom, 
with his lips of gold, ' the true Shekinah is Man :' where else is the 



t 



A 



32 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

God's-Presence manifested not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as in 
our fellow man '?" 

In such passages, unhappily too rare, the high Platonic Mysticism of 
our Author, which is perhaps the fundamental element of his nature, 
bursts forth, as it were, in full flood : and, through all the vapor and 
larnish of what is often so perverse, so mean in his exierior and environ- 
ment, we seem to look into a whole inward Sea of Light and Love \ — 
though, alas, the grim coppery clouds soon roll together again, and hide 
it from view. 

Such tendency to Mysticism is everywhere traceable in this man; and 
indeed, to attentive readers, must have been long ago apparent. Noth- 
ing that he sees but has more than a common meaning, but has two 
meanings: thus, if in the highest Imperial Sceptre and Charlemagne- 
Mantle, as v/ell as in the poorest Ox-goad and Gipsy-Blanket, he finds 
Prose, Decay, Contemptibility ; there is in each sort Poetry also, and a 
reverend Worth. For Matter, were it never so despicable, is Spirit, the 
manifestation of Spirit : were it never so honorable, can it be more 1 
The thing Visible, nay the thing Imagined, the thing in any way con- 
ceived as Visible, what is it but a Garment, a Clothing of the higher, 
celestial Invisible, "unimaginable, formless, dark with excess of bright^' 
Under which point of view the following passage, so strange in purport, 
so strange in phrase, seems characteristic enough : 

" The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fi.xedly on Clothes, or even 
with armed eyesight, till they become transparent. ' The Philosopher,' 
says the wisest of this age, ' must station himself in the middle :' how 
true ! The Philosopher is he to whom the Highest has descended, and 
the Lowest has mounted up ; who is the equal and kindly brother of all. 
" Shall we tremble before clothwebs and cobwebs, whether woven in 
Arkwright looms, or by the silent Arachnes that weave unrestingly in 
our Imagination 1 Or, on the other hand, what is there that we cannot 
love ; since all was created by God '? 

" Happy he who can look through the Clothes of a Man (the woollen, 
and fleshly, and official Bank-paper and State-paper Clothes), into the 
Man liimself; and discern, it may be, in this or the other Dread Poten- 
tate, a more or less incompetent Digestive-apparatus ; yet also an in- 
scrutable venerable Mystery, in the meanest Tinker that sees with eyes!" 
For the rest, as is natural to a man of this kind, he deals much in the 
feeling of Wonder ; insists on the necessity and high worth of univer- 
sal Wonder; which he holds to be the only reasonable temper for the 
denizen of so singular a Planet as ours. ' " Wonder," says he, " is the 
basis of Worship : the reign of wonder is perennial, indestructible in 
Man ; only at certain stages (as the present), it is, for some short season, 
a reign in partibus infiddium.'' That progress of Science, which is to 
destroy Wonder, and in its stead substitute Mensuration and Numera- 
tion, finds small favor with Teufelsdrockh, much as he otherwise vene- 
rates these two latter processes. 

" Shall your Science," exclaims he, " proceed in the small chink-light- 
ed, or even oil-lighted, underground workshop of Logic alone; and 
man's mind become an Arithmetical Mill, whereof Memory is the Hop- 
per, and mere Tables of Sines and Tangents, Codification, and Trea- 
tises of what you call Political Economy, are the Meal 1 And what is 
that Science, which the scientific head alone, were it screwed off, and 
(like the Doctor's in the Arabian Tale) set in a basin, to keep it alive, 
could prosecute without shadow of a heart, — but one other of the mecha- 
nical and menial handicrafts, for which the Scientific Head (having a 
Soul in it) is too noble an organ % I mean that Thought without Rever- 
ence is barren, perhaps poisonous; at best, dies like Cookery with the 
.iay that called it forth ; does not live, like sowing, in successive tilths 



PROSPECTIVE. 33 

and widpr-spreading harvests, bringing food and plenteous increase to 
all Time." 

In such wise does Teufelsdrockh deal hits, harder or softer according 
10 ability ; yet ever, as we would fain persuade ourselves, with charita- 
ble intern. Above all, that class of " Logic-choppers, and treble-pipe 
Scoffers, and professed Enemies to Wonder ; who, in these days, so nu- 
merously patrol as night-constables about the Mechanics' Institute of 
Science, and cackle, like true Old Roman geese and goslings round 
their Capitol, on any alarm, or on none ; nay who often, as illuminated 
Sceptics, walk abroad into peaceable society, in full daylight, with rattle 
and lantern, and insist on guiding you and guarding you therewith, 
though the Sun is shining, and the street populous with mere justice- 
loving men :" that whole class is inexpressibly wearisome to him. Hear 
with what uncommon animation he perorates : 

" The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and 
worship), were he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and car- 
ried the whole Mecanique Celeste and Hegel's Philosophy, and the epi- 
tome of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in his sin- 
gle head, — is but a Pair of Spectacles behind which there is no Eye. Let 
those who have Eyes look through him, then he may be useful. 

" Thou wilt have no Mystery and Mysticism ; wilt walk through thy 
world by the sunshine of what thou callest Truth, or even by the Hand- 
lamp of what I call Attorney Logic; and 'explain' all, 'account' for all, 
or believe nothing of it 1 Nay, thou wilt attempt laughter ; whoso re- 
cognizes the unfathomable, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is 
everywhere under our feet and among our hands ; to whom, the Universe 
is an Oracle and Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall, — he 
shall be a (delirious) Mystic ; to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt 
protrusively proffer thy Handlamp, and shriek, as one injured, when he 
kicks his foot through it? — Armer Teufel! Doth not thy Cow calve, 
doth not thy Bull gender 1 Thou thyself, wert thou not Born, wilt thou 
not Die 1 ' Explain' me all this, or do one of two things : Retire inta 
private places with thy foolish cackle ; or, what were better, give it up, 
and weep, not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's world all dis- 
embellished and prosaic, but that thou hitherto art a Dilettante and sand- 
blind Pedant." 



V 



CHAPTER XI, 



PROSPECTIVE. 



The Philosophy of Clothes is now to all readers, as we predicted it 
would do, unfolding itself into new boundless expansions, of a cloud- 
capt, almost chimerical aspect, yet not without azure loomings in the far 
distance, and streaks as of an Elysian brightness ; the highly questiona- 
ble purport and promise of which it is becoming more and more import- 
ant for us to ascertain. Is that a real Elysian brightness, cries many a 
timid wayfarer, or the reflex of Pandemonian lava 1 Is it of a truth 
leading us into beatific Asphodel mea(?ows, or the yellow-burning marl 
of a Hell-on-Earth 1 

Our Professor, like other Mystics, whether delirious or inspired, gives 
an Editor enough to do. Ever higher and dizzier are the heights he 
leads us to •, more piercing, all-comprehending, all-confounding are his 
views and glances. For example, this of Nature being not an Aggre- 
gate but a whole : 

" Well sang the Hebrew Psalmist : ' If I take the wings of the morn- 
ing and dwell in the uttermost parts of the universe, God is there,' 



31 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

Thou too, O cultivated reader, who too probably art no Psalmist, but a 
Prosaist, knowing God only by tradition, knowest thou any corner of 
the world where at least Force is not 1 The drop which thou shakest 
from thy wet hand, rests not w'here it falls, but to-morrow thou findest it 
swept away ; already, on the wings of the Northwind, it is nearing the 
Tropic of Cancer. How came it to evaporate, and not lie motionless 1 
Thinkest thou there is aught motionless; without Force, and utterly 
dead-? 

" As I rode through the Schwarzwald, I said to myself: That little 
fire which glows star-like across the dark-growing {nachtende) moor, 
where the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace 
thy lost horse-shoe, — is it a detached, separated speck, cut off from the 
whole Universe ; or indissolubly joined to the whole 1 Thou fool, that 
smithy-fire was (primarily) kindled at the Sun ; is fed by air that circu- 
lates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dogstar; therein, wilh 
Iron Force and Coal Force, and the far stronger Force of Man, are cun- 
ning affinities and battles and victories of Force brought about : it is a 
little ganglion, or nervous centre, in the great vital system of Immensity. 
Call it, if thou wilt, an unconscious Altar, kindled on the bosom of the 
All ; whose iron sacrifice, whose iron smoke and influence reach quite 
through the All ; whose Dingy Priest, not by word, yet by brain and 
sinew, preaches forth the mystery of Force ; nay, preaches forth (exote- 
rical enough) one little textlet from the Gospel of Freedom, the Gospel 
of Man's Force, commanding, and one day to be all-commanding. 

" Detached, separated ! I say there is no such separation : nothing 
hitherto was ever stranded, cast aside ; but all, were it only a withered 
leaf, works together with all ; is borne forward on the bottomless, shore- 
less flood of Action, and lives through perpetual metamorphoses. The 
withered leaf is not dead and lost, there are Forces in it and around it, 
though working in inverse order ; else how could it tot ? Despise not 
the rag from which man makes Paper, or the litter from which the 
Earth makes Corn. Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant ; 
all objects are as windows, through which the philosophic eye looks into 
Infinitude itself" 

Again, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald Smithy-Altar, what 
vacant, high-sailing air-ships are these, and whither will they sail 
with us 1 

" All visible things are Emblems ; what thou seest is not there on its 
own account ; strictly taken, is not there at all : Matter exists only spi- 
ritually, and to represent some Idea, and body it forth. Hence Clothes, 
as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably significant. Clothes, 
from the King's mantle downwards, are emblematic, not of want only, 
but of a manifold cmming Victory over Want. On the other hand, all 
emblematic things are properly Clothes, thought- woven or hand- woven : 
must not the Imagination weave Garments, visible Bodies, wherein the 
else invisible creations and inspirations of our Reason are, like Spirits, 
revealed, and first become all-powerful ; — the rather if, as we often see, 
the Hand, too, aid her, and (by wool Clothes or otherwise) reveal such 
even to the outward eye 1 ^ 

" Men are properly said to be clothed with Authority, clothed with 
Beauty, with Curses, and the like. Nay, if you consider it, what is 
Man himself, and his whole terrestrial Life, but an Emblem. ; a Clothing 
or visible Garment for that divine Me of his, cast hither, like a light- 
particle, down from Heaven '? Thus is he said also to be clothed with 
a Body. 

" Language is called the Garment of Thought: however, it should 
rather be. Language is the Flesh-Garment, the Body, of Thought. I 
said that Imagination wove this Flesh-Garment ; and does she not ? 



PROSPECTIVE. 35 

Metaphors are her stuff: examine Language ; what, if you except some 
few primitive elements (of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, 
recognized as such, or no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or 
now solid-grown and colorless 1 If those same primitive elements are 
the osseous fixtures in the Flesh-Garment, Language, — then are Meta- 
phors its muscles and tissues and living integuments. An unmetaphor- 
ical style you shall in vain seek for : is not your very Attentioii a Stretch- 
ing-to? The difference lies here : some styles are lean, adust, wiry, the 
muscle itself seems osseous ; some are even quite jiallid, hunger-bitten, 
and dead-looking ; while others again glow in the flush of health and 
vigorous self-growth, sometimes (as in my own case) not without an 
apoplectic tendency. Moreover, there are sham Metaphors, which over- 
hanging that same Thought's Body (best naked), and deceptively bedi- 
zening, or bolstering it out, may be called its false stuffings, superfluous 
show-cloaks (Putz-Mdntel), and tawdry woollen rags : whereof he that 
runs and reads may gather whole hampers, — and burn them." 

Than which paragraph on Metaphors did the reader ever chance to 
see a more surprisingly metaphorical '? However, that is not our chief 
grievance ; the Professor continues : 

" Why multiply instances 1 It is written, the Heavens and the Earth 
shall fade away like a Vesture ; which indeed they are : the Time- 
vesture of the Eternal. Whatsoever sensibly exists, whatsoever repre- 
sents Spirit to Spirit, is properly a Clothing, a suit of Raiment, put on 
for a season, and to be laid off. Thus in this one pregnant subject of 
Clothes, rightly understood, is included all that men have thought, 
dreamed, done, and been : the whole External Universe and what it 
holds is but Clothing ; and the essence of all Science lies in the Philo- 
sophy OF Clothes." 

Towards these dim infinitely-expanded regions, close-bordering on 
the impalpable Inane, it is not without apprehension, and perpetual dif- 
ficulties, that the Editor sees himself journeying and struggling. Till 
lately a cheerful daystar of hope hung before him, in the expected Aid 
of Hofrath Heuschrecke ; which daystar, however, melts now, not into 
the red of morning, but into a vague, grey half-light, uncertain whether 
dawn of day or dusk of utter darkness. For the last week, these so- 
called Biographical Documents are in his hand. By the kindness of a 
Scottish Hamburgh Merchant, whose name, known to the whole mer- 
cantile world, he must not mention ; but whose honorable courtesy, now 
and often before spontaneously manifested to him, a mere literary stran- 
ger, he cannot soon forget, — the bulky Weissnichtwo Packet, with all 
its Customhouse seals, foreign hieroglyphs, and miscellaneous tokens of 
Travel, arrived here in perfect safety, and free of cost. The reader 
shall now fancy with what hot haste it was broken up, with what breath- 
less expectation glanced over; and, alas, with what unquiet disappoint- 
ment it has, since then, been often thrown down, and again taken up. 

Hofrath Heuschrecke, in a too long-winded Letter, full of compliment;-, 
Weissnichtwo politics, dining repartees, and other ephemeral trivialities, 
proceeds to remind us of what we knew well already : that however it 
may be with Metaphysics, and other abstract Science originating in the 
Head ( Verstand) alone, no Life-Philosophy (LebenspMlosophie), such as 
this of Clothes pretends to be, which originates equally in the Character 
{Gemuth), and equally speaks thereto, can attain its significance till the 
Character itself is known and seen ; " till the Author's View of the 
World (Weltansicht), and how he actively and passively came by such 
view, are clear: in short till a Biography of him has been philosophico- 
poetically written, and philosophico-poetically read." Nay, adds he, 
"were the speculative scientific Truth even known, you still, in this 
inquiring age, ask yourself, Whence came it, and Why, and How? — 



36 SAHTOR RESARTUS. 

and rest not, till, if no better may be, Fancy have shaped out an answer ; 
and either in the authentic lineaments of Fact, or the forged ones of 
Fiction, a complete picture and Genetical History of the Man and his 
spiritual Endeavor lies before you. But why," says the Hofrath, and 
indeed say we, " do I dilate on the uses of our Teufelsdrockh's Biogra- 
phy 1 The great Herr Minister von Goethe has penetratingly remarked 
that ' Man is properly the only object that interests man :' thus I too have 
noted, that in Weissnichtwo our whole conversation is little or nothing 
else but Biography or Autobiography ; ever humano-anecdotical {men- 
sMich-ayiecdotisch). Biography is by nature the most universally profit- 
able, universally pleasant of all things : especially Biography of distin- 
guished individuals. 

" By this time, mein Verehrtester ( my Most Esteemed)," continues he, 
with an eloquence which, unless \h.e words be purloined from Teufels- 
drockh, or some trick of his, as we suspect, is well nigh unaccountable, 
" by this time you are fairly plunged (veriiefl) in that mighty forest of 
Clothes-Philosophy ; and jooking round, as all readers do, with astonish- 
ment enough. Such portions and passages as you have already mas- 
tered, and brought to paper, could not but awaken a strange curiosity 
touching the mind they issued from ; the perhaps unparalleled psychical 
mechanism, which manufactured such matter, and emitted it to the light 
of day. Had Teufelsdrockh also a father and mother ; did he, at one 
time, wear drivel-bibs, and live on spoon-meat 1 Did he ever, in rap- 
ture and tears, clasp a friend's bosom to his ; looks he also wistfully into 
the long burial-aisle of the Past, where only winds, and their low harsh 
moan, give inarticulate answer 1 Has he fought duels ; — good Heaven ! 
how did he comport himself when in Love ? By what singular stair- 
steps, in short, and subterranean passages, and sloughs of Despair, and 
steep Pisgah hills, has he reached this wonderful prophetic Hebron (a 
true Old-Clothes Jewry) where he now dwells'? 

" To all these natural questions the voice of public History is as yet 
silent. Certain only that he has been, and is, a Pilgrim, and Traveller 
from a far Country; more or less footsore and travel-soiled; has parted 
with road-companions ; fallen among thieves, been poisoned by bad cook- 
ery, blistered with bugbites ; nevertheless, at every stage (for they have 
let him pass), has had the Bill to discharge. But the whole particulars 
of his Route, his Weather-observations, the picturesque Sketches he 
took, though all regularly jotted down (indelible sympathetic-ink by an 
invisible interior Penman), are these nowhere forthcoming 1 Perhaps 
quite lost : one other leaf of that mighty Volume (of human Memory) 
eft to iiy abroad, unprinted, unpublished, unbound up, as waste paper ; 
and rot, the sport of rainy winds '? 

" No, verehrtester Herr Herausgcber , in no wise ! 1 here, by the unex- 
ampled favor you stand in with our Sage, send not a Biography only, 
but an Autobiography : at least the materials for such ; wherefrom if I 
misreckon not, your perspicacity will draw fullest insight ; and so the 
whole Philosophy and Philosopher of Clothes stands clear to the won- 
dering eyes of England, nay, thence, through America, through Hin- 
dostan, and the antipodal New Holland, finally conquer {einnehinen) great 
part of this terrestrial Planet !" 

And now let the sympathising reader judge of our feeling when, in 
place of this same Autobiography with "fullest insight," we find — Six 
considerable Paper-bags, carefully sealed, and marked successively, in 
gilt China-ink, with the symbols of the Six southern Zodiacal Signs, begin- 
ning at Libra ; in the inside of which sealed Bags lie miscellaneous 
masses of Sheets, and oftener Shreds and Snips, written in Professor 
Teufelsdrockh's scarce legible cursiv-schrift ; and treating of all ima- 



PliOSPECTIVE. 37 

ginable things under the Zodiac, and above it, but of his own personal 
history only at rare intervals, and then in the most enigmatic manner! 

Whole fascicles there are, wherein the Professor, or as he here speak- 
ing in the third person calls himself, " the Wanderer," is not once 
named. Then again, amidst what seems to be a Metaphysico-theological 
Disquisition, " Detached Thoughts on the Steam-engine," or, " The 
continued Possibility of Prophecy," we shall meet with some quite pri- 
vate, not unimportant Biographical fact. On certain sheets stand 
Dreams, authentic or not, while the circumjacent waking Actions are 
omitted. Anecdotes, oftenest without date of place or lime, fly loosely 
on separate slips, like Sibylline leaves. Interspersed also are long purely 
Autobiographical delineations, yet without connection, without recogniz- 
able coherence ; so unimportant, so superfluously minute, they almost 
remind us of " P. P. Clerk of this Parish." Thus does famine of intel- 
ligence alternate with waste. Selection, order appears to be unknown 
to the Professor. In all Bags the same imbroglio ; only perhaps in the 
Bag Capricorn, and those near it, the confusion a little worse confound- 
ed. Close by a rather eloquent Oration " On receiving the Doctor's- 
Hat," lie washbills marked bezahlt (settled). His Travels are indicated 
by the Street-Advertisements of the various cities he has visited ; of 
which Street- Advertisements, in most living tongues, here is perhaps the 
completest collection extant. 

So that if the Clothes Volume itself was too like a Chaos, we have 
now instead of the solar Luminary that should still it, the airy Limbo 
which by intermixture will farther volatilise and discompose it ! As 
we shall perhaps see it our duty ultimately to deposit these Six Paper- 
Bags in the British Museum, farther description, and all vituperation of 
them, may be spared. Biography or Autobiography of Teufelsdrdckh 
there is, clearly enough, none to be gleaned here : at most some sketchy, 
shadowy fugitive likeness of him may, by unheard-of efforts, partly of 
intellect, partly of imagination, on the side of Editor and of Reader, 
rise up between them. Only as a gaseous-chaotic Appendix to that 
aqueous-chaotic Volume can the contents of the Six Bags hover round 
us, and portions thereof be incorporated Avith our delineation of it. 

Daily and nightly does the Editor sit (with green spectacles) decipher- 
ing these unimaginable Documents from their perplexed cursiv-schrift ; 
collating them with the almost equally unimaginable Volume, which 
stands in legible print. Over such a universal medley of high and low, 
of hot, cold, moist and dry, is he here struggling (by union of like with 
like, which is Method) to build a firm Bridge for British travellers. 
Never perhaps since our first Bridge-builders, Sin and Death, built that 
stupendous Arch from Hell-gate to the Earth, did any Pontifex, or Pon- 
tiff, undertake such a task as the present Editor. For in this Arch too, 
leading, as we humbly presume, far otherwards than that grand primeval 
one, the materials are to be fished up from the weltering deep, and down 
from the simmering air, here one mass, there another, and cunningly 
cemented, while the elements boil beneath : nor is there any supernatu- 
ral force to do it with; but simply the Diligence and feeble thinking 
Faculty of an English Editor, endeavoring to evolve printed Creation 
out of a German printed and written Chaos, w^herein, as he shoots to 
and fro in it, gathering, clutching, piecing the Why to the far-distant 
Wherefore, his whole Faculty and Self are like to be swallowed up. 

Patiently, under these incessant toils and agitations, does the Editor, 
dismissing all anger, see his otherwise robust health declining; some 
fraction of his allotted natural sleep nightly leaving him, and little but 
an inflamed nervous-system to be looked for. What is the use of 
Health, or of Life, if not to do some work therewith ? And what work 
nobler than transplanting foreign Thought into the barren domestic 
4 



38 SARTOR KESARTUS. 

soil ; except indeed planting Thought of your own, which the fewest 
are privileged to do 1 Wild as it looks, this Philosophy of Clothes, can 
we ever reach its real meaning, promises to reveal new-coming Eras, 
the first dim rudiments and already-budding germs of a nobler Era, in 
Universal History. Is not such a prize worth some striving ] Forward 
with us, courageous reader ; be it towards failure or towards success ! 
The latter thou sharest with us, the former also is not all our own. 



BOOK II. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENESIS, 



In a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable whether 
from birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinised soever, much insight 
is to be gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenomenon the Beginning 
remains always the most notable moment ; so, with regard to any great 
man, we rest not till, for our scientific profit or not, the whole circum- 
stances of his first appearance in this Planet, and what manner of Pub- 
lic Entry he made, are with utmost completeness rendered manifest. To 
the Genesis of our Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this First Chapter con- 
secrated. Unhappily, indeed, he seems to be of quite obscure extrac- 
tion; uncertain, we might almost say, whether of any: so that this 
Genesis of his can properly be nothing but an Exodus (or transit out of 
Invisibility into Visibility) ; whereof the preliminary portion is nowhere 
forthcoming. 

" In the village of Entepfuhl," thus writes he, in the Bag Libra, on 
various Papers, which we arrange with difficulty, " dwelt Andreas Fut- 
teral and his wife ; childless, in still seclusion, and cheerful though now 
verging towards old age. Andreas had been grenadier Sergeant, and 
even regimental Schoolmaster imder Frederick the Great; but now, 
quitting the halbert and ferule for the spade and pruning-hook, cultivated 
a little Orchard, on the produce of which he, Cincinnatus-like, lived not 
without dignity. Fruits, the peach, the apple, the grape, with other va- 
rieties came in their season ; all which Andreas knew how to sell : on 
evenings he smoked largely, or read (as beseemed a regimental School- 
master), and talked to neighbors that would listen about the victory of 
Rossbach ; and how Fritz the Only (der Einzige) had once with his own 
royal lips spoken to him, had been pleased to say when Andreas as 
camp-sentinel demanded the pass-word, ' Schtoeig Du Hund (Peace, 
hound !)' before any of his staff-adjutants could answer, ' Dasnenn 'ick 
mir einen Kdnig, there is what I call a King,' would Andreas exclaim : 
' but the smoke of Kunersdorf was still smarting his eyes.' 

*' Gretchen, the housewife, won like Desdemona by the deeds rather 
than the looks of her now veteran Othello, lived not in altogether mili- 
tary subordination ; for, as Andreas said, ' the womankind will not drill 
(joer kann die Weiberchen dressircn) -.^ nevertheless she at heart loved 
him both for valor and wisdom ; to her a Prussian grenadier Sergeant 
and Regiment's-Schoolmaster was little other than a Cicero and Cid : 
what you see, yet cannot see over, is as good as infinite. Nay, was not 
Andreas in very deed a man of order, courage, downrightness ( Gerad' 



GENESIS. 39 

heii) ; that understood Busching's Geography, had been in the victory 
of Rossbach, and left for dead in the camisade of Hochkirch 1 The 
good Gretchen, for all her fretting, watched over him and hovered round 
him, as only a true housemother can : assiduously she cooked and sewed 
and scoured for him ; so that not only his old regimental sword and 
grenadier-cap, but the whole habitation and environment, where on pegs 
of honor they hung, looked ever trim and ga.y : a roomy painted Cot- 
tage, embowered in fruit-trees and forest-trees, evergreens and honey- 
suckles; rising many-colored from amid shaven grass-plots, flowers 
strug-gling in through the very windows; under its long projecting eaves 
nothing but garden-tools in methodic piles (to screen them from rain), 
and seats, where, especially on summer nights, a King might have 
wished to sit and smoke, and call it his. Sach a Bauer gut (Copyhold) 
had Gretchen given her veteran ; whose sinewy arms, and long-disused 
gardening talent, had made it what you saw. 

" Into this umbrageous Man's-nest, one meek yellow evening or dusk, 
when the Sun, hidden indeed from terrestrial Entepfuhl, did neverthe- 
less journey visible and radiant along the celestial Balance {Libra), it 
was that a Stranger of reverend aspect entered ; and, with grave saluta- 
tion, stood before the two rather astonished housemates. He was close- 
muffled in a wide mantle ; which without farther parley unfolding, he 
deposited therefrom what seemed some Basket, overhung with green 
Persian silk ; saying only : Ihr lieben Leute^ hier bringe ein unschdtz- 
hares, Verleihen; nehmt es in alter Add, sorgfdltigst benutzt es: mit hohem 
Lohn, oder wohl mit scMoerem Zinsen, wiriVs einst ziirucJcgefordert, 
' Good Christian people, here lies for you an invaluable Loan ; take all 
heed thereof, in all carefulness employ it : with high recompense, or else 
with heavy penalty, will it one day be required back.' Uttering which 
singular words, in a clear, bell-like, for ever memorable tone, the Stran- 
ger gracefully withdrew; and before Andreas or his wife, gazing inex' 
pectant wonder, had time to fashion either question or ?mswer, was clean 
gone. Neither out of doors could aught of him be seen or heard ; he 
had vanished in the thickets, in the dusk ; the Orchard-gate stood quiet- 
ly closed : the Stranger was gone once and always. So sudden had the 
whole transaction been, in the autumn stillness and twilight, so gentle, 
noiseless, that the Futterals could have fancied it all a trick of Imagina- 
tion, or some visit from an authentic Spirit. Only that the green silk 
Basket, such as neither Imagination nor authentic Spirits are wont to 
carry, still stood visible and tangible on their little parlor-table. Towards 
this the astonished couple, now with lit candle, hastily turned their at- 
tention. Lifting the green veil, to see what invaluable it hid, they de- 
scried there, amid down and rich white wrappages, no Pitt Diamond or 
Hapsburg Regalia, but in the softest sleep, a little red-colored Infant ! 
Beside it, lay a roll of gold Friedrichs, the exact amount of which was 
never publicly known : also a Taufschein (baptismal certificate), where- 
in unfortunately nothing but the Name was decipherable ; other docu- 
ment or indication none whatever. 

*' To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then and thenceforth. 
Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next day, did tidings trans- 
pire of any such figure as the Stranger ; nor could the Traveller, who 
had passed through the neighboring Town in coach-and-four, be con- 
nected with this Apparition, except in the way of gratuitous surmise. 
Meanwhile, for Andreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was : 
What to do with this little sleeping red-colored Infant 1 Amid amaze- 
ments and curiosities, which had to die away without external satisfy- 
ing, they resolved, as in such circumstances charitable prudent people 
needs must, on nursing it, though with spoon-meat, into whiteness, and 
if possible into manhood. The Heavens smiled on their endeavor : thus 



40 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

has that same mysterious Individual ever since had a status for himself, 
in this visible Universe, some modicum of victual and lodging and 
parade-ground ; and now expanded in bulk, faculty, and knowledge of 
good and evil, he, as Her Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, professes, or is 
ready to profess, perhaps not altogether without effect, in the new Uni- 
versity of Weissnichtwo, the new Science of Things in General." 

Our Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should think he well 
might, that these facts, first communicated, by the good Gretchen Fut- 
teral, in his twelfth year, " produced on the boyish heart and fancy a quite 
indelible impression. Who this reverend Personage," he says, " that 
glided into the Orchard Cottage when the Sun was in Libra, and then, 
as on spirit's wings, glided out again, might be ? An inexpressible 
desire, full of love and of sadness, has often since struggled within me 
to shape an answer. Ever in my distresses and my loneliness, has Fan- 
tasy turned, full of longing {sehnsiichtsvoll), to that unknown Father, 
who, perhaps far from me, perhaps near, either way invisible, might have 
taken me to his paternal bosom, there to lie screened from man)^ a woe. 
Thou beloved Father, dost thou still, shut out from me only by thin 
penetrable curtains of earthly Space, wend to and fro among the crowd 
of the living 1 Or art thou hidden by those far thicker curtains of the 
Everlasting Night, or rather of the Everlasting Day, through which my 
mortal eye and outstretched arms need not strive to reach '? Alas ! I 
know not, and in vain vex myself to know. More than once, heart- 
deluded, have I taken for thee this and the other noble-looking Stranger; 
and approached him wistfully, with infinite regard : but he too must 
repel me, he too was not thou. 

" And yet, O Man born of Woman," cries the Autobiographer, with 
one of his sudden whirls, " wherein is my case peculiar 1 Hadst thou, 
any more than I, a Father whom thou knowest ? The Andreas and 
Gretchen, or the Adam and Eve, who led thee into Life, and for a time 
suckled and pap-fed thee there, whom thou namest Father and Mother ; 
these were, like mine, but ihy nursing-father and nursing-mother : thy 
true Beginning and Father is in Heaven, whom with the bodily eye thou 
shalt never behold, but only with the spiritual." 

" The little green veil," adds he, among much similar moralising, 
and embroiled discoursing, " I yet keep ; still more inseparably the 
Name, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh. From the veil can nothing be inferred : 
a piece of now quite faded Persian silk, like thousands of others. On 
the Name I have many times meditated and conjectured ; but neither in 
this lay there any clue. That it was my unknown Father's name I must 
hesitate to believe. To no purpose have I searched through all the 
Herald's Books, in and without the German Empire, and through all 
manner of Subscriber- Lists {PrdnumeranteTi), Militia-Rolls, and other 
Name Catalogues ; extraordinary names as we have in Germany, t]}e 
name of Teufelsdrockh, except as appended to my own person, nowhere 
occurs. Again, what may the unchristian rather than Christian ' Dio- 
genes' mean 7 Did that reverend Basket-bearer intend, by such desig- 
nation, to shadow forth my future destiny, or his own present malign 
humor 1 Perhaps the latter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starred Parent, who 
like an Ostrich must leave thy ill-starred offspring to be hatched into 
self-support by the mere sky-influences of Chance, can thy pilgrimage 
have been a smooth one 1 Beset by Misfortune thou doubtless hast been ; 
or indeed by the worst figure of Misfortune, by Misconduct. Often have 
I fancied how, in thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot at and slung at, 
wounded, hand-fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten and bedevilled, by the 
Time-Spirit {Zeitgeist) in thyself and others, till the good soul first given 
thee was seared into grim rage ; and thou hadst nothing for it but to 
leave in me an indignant appeal to the Future, and living speaking Pro- 



GENESIS. 41 

test against the Devil, as that same Spirit not of the Time only, but of 
Time itself, is well named ! Which Appeal and Protest, may I now 
modestly add, was not perhaps quite lost in air. 

" For, indeed, as Walter Shandy often insisted, there is much, nay, 
almost all, in Names. The name is the earliest Garment you wrap 
round the Earth- visiting Me ; to which it thenceforth cleaves, more tena- 
ciously (for there are Names that have lasted nigh thirty centuries) than 
the very skin. And now from without, what mystic influences does it 
not send inwards, even to the centre ; especially in those plastic first- 
times, when the whole soul is yet infantine, soft, and the invisible seed- 
grain will grow to be an all over-shadowing tree ! Names 1 Could I 
unfold the influence of Names, which are the most important of all 
Clothings, I were a second greater Trismegistus. Not only all common 
Speech, but Science, Poetry itself is no other, if thou consider it, than a 
right Naming. Adam's first task was giving names to natural Appear- 
ances : what is ours still but a continuation of the same ; be the Appear- 
ances exotic- vegetable, organic, mechanic, stars, or starry movements 
(as in Science) ; or (as in Poetry) passions, virtues, calamities, God-attri- 
butes, God's 1 — In a very plain sense the Proverb says. Call one a thief 
and he will steal ; in an almost similar sense, may we not perhaps say. Call 
one Diogenes Teufelsdrdckh and he will open the Philosophy of Clothes. 

" Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all ignorant of his 
Why, his How or Whereabout, was opening his eyes to the kind Light ; 
sprawling out his ten fingers and toes ; listening, tasting, feeling ; in a 
word, by all his Five Senses, still more by his Sixth sense of Hunger, 
and a whole infinitude of inward, spiritual, half-awakened Senses, en- 
deavoring daily to acquire for himself some knowledge of this strange 
Universe where he had arrived, be his task therein what it might. Infi- 
nite was his progress ; thiTs in some fifteen months, he could perform the 
miracle of— Speech ! To breed a fresh Soul, is it not like brooding a 
fresh (celestial) Egg; wherein as yet all is formless, powerless; yet by 
degrees organic elements and fibres shoot through the watery albumen; 
and out of vague Sensation, grows Thought, grows Fantasy and Force, 
and we have Philosophies, Dynasties, nay, Poetries and Religions ! 

"Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such diminutive 
had they in their fondness named him, travelled forward to those high 
consummations, by quick yet easy stages. The Futterals, to avoid vain 
talk, and moreover keep the roll of gold Friedrichs safe, gave out that 
he was a grand-nephew ; the orphan of some sister's daughter, suddenly 
deceased, in Andreas's distant Prussian birth-land ; of whom, as of her 
indigent sorrowing widower, little enough was known at Entepfuhl. 
Heedless of all which, the Nurseling took to his spoon-meat, and throve. 
I have heard him noted as a still infant, that kept his mind much to him- 
self; above all, that seldom or never cried. He already felt that time 
wasprecious; that he had other work cut out for him than whimpering." 

Such, after utmost painful search and collation among these miscella- 
neous Paper-masses, is all the notice we can gather of Herr Teufels- 
drockh's genealogy. More imperfect, more enigmatic it can seem to 
few readers than to us. The Professor, in whom truly we more and 
more discern a certain satirical turn, and deep under-currents of roguish 
whim, for the present stands pledged in honor, so we will not doubt him : 
but seems it not conceivable that, by the " good Gretchen Futteral," or 
some other perhaps interested party, he has himself been deceived % 
Should these Sheets, translated or not, ever reach the Entepfuhl Circu- 
lating-Library, some cultivated native of that district might feel called 
to afford explanation. Nay, since Books, like invisible scouts, permeatf 
the whole habitable globe, and Tombuctoo itself is not safe from British 
Literature, may not some Copy find out even the mysterious Basket - 
4* 



42 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

bearing stranger, who in a state of extreme senility perhaps still exists ; 
and gently force even him to disclose himself; to claim openly a son, in 
whom any father may feel pride 1 



CHAPTER II. 



IDYLLIC. 



" Happy season of Childhood !" exclaims Teufelsdrockh : " Kind Na- 
ture, that art to all a bountiful mother ; that visitest the poor man's hut 
with auroral radiance; and for thy Nurseling hast provided a soft 
swathing of Love and infinite Hope, wherein he waxes and slumbers, 
danced-round {umgaukelt) by swedtest Dreams ! If the paternal Cottage 
still shuts us in, its roof still screens us; with a Father we have as yet a 
prophet, priest and king, and an Obedience that makes us Free. The 
young spirit has awakened out of Eternity, and knows not what we 
mean by Time; as yet Time is no fast-hurrying stream, but a sportful 
sunlit ocean ; years to the child are as ages : ah ! the secret of Vicissi- 
tude, of that slower or quicker decay and ceaseless downrushing of the 
universal World-fabric, from the granite mountain to the man or day- 
moth, is yet unknown ; and in a motionless Universe, we taste, what af- 
terwards in this quick- whirling Universe is for ever denied us, the balm 
of Rest. Sleep on, thou fair Child, for thy long rough journey is at 
hand ! A little while, and thou too shalt sleep no more, but thy very 
dreams shall be mimic battles ; thou too, with old Arnauld, must say in 
stern patience : ' Rest 1 Resf? Shall I not have all Eternity to rest in'?' 
Celestial Nepenthe ! though a Pyrrhus conquer empires, and an Alex- 
ander sack the world, he finds thee not ; and thou hast once fallen gen- 
tly, of thy own accord, on the eye-lids, on the heart of every mother's 
cMld. For as yet, sleep and waking are one: the fair Life-garden 
rustles infinite around, and everywhere is dewy fragrance, and the bud- 
ding of Hope ; which budding, if in youth, too frostnipt, it gTOWS to 
flowers, will in manhood yield no fruit, but a prickly, bitter-rinded stone- 
fruit, of which the fewest can find the kernel." 

In such rose-colored light does our Professor, as Poets are wont, look 
back on his childhood ; the historical details of which (to say nothing of 
much other vague oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells on, with an 
almost wearisome minuteness. We hear of Entepfuhl standing "in 
trustful derangement" among the woody slopes ; the paternal Orchard 
flanking it as extreme out-post from below ; the little Kuhbach gushing 
kindly by, among beech-rows, through river after river, into the Donau, 
into the Black Sea, into the Atmosphere and Universe; and how "the 
brave old Linden," stretching like a parasol of twenty ells in radius, 
overtopping all other rows and clumps, towered up from the central 
Agora and Campus Martins of the Village, like its Sacred Tree ; and 
how the old men sat talking under its shadow (Gneschen often greedily 
listening), and the wearied laborers reclined, and the unwearied children 
sported, and the young men and maidens often danced to flute-music. 
" Glorious summer twilights," cries Teufelsdrockh, " when the Sun like 
a proud Conqueror and Imperial Taskmaster turned his back, with his 
gold-purple emblazonry, and all his fire-clad bodyguard (of Prismatic 
Colors) ; and the tired brickmakers of this clay Earth might steal a little 
frolic, and those few meek Stars would not tell of them !" 

Then have we long details of the Weinlescn (Vintage), the Harvest- 
Home, Christmas, and so forth ; with a whole cycle of the Entepfuhl 
Childreii's-games, difl^ering apparently by mere superficial shades from 
those of other countries. Concerning all which, we shall here, for ob- 



IDYLLIC. 43 

vious reasons, say nothing. What cares the world for our as yet minia- 
ture Philosopher's achievements under that "brave old Linden?' Or 
even where is the use of such practical reflections as the following'? " In 
all the sports of Children, were it only in their wanton breakages and 
defacements, you shall discern a creative instinct (S'c/i«^c7i^e% Trieb) : 
the Mankin feels that he is a born Man, that his vocation is to Work. 
The choicest present you can make him is a Tool ; be it knife or pen- 
gun, for construction or for destruction ; either way it is for Work, for 
Change. In gregarious sports of skill or strength, the Boy trains him- 
self to Co-operation, for war or peace, as governor or governed : the 
little Maid again, provident of her domestic destiny, takes with prefer- 
ence to Dolls." 

Perhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, considering who it is 
that relates it : " My first short-clothes were of yellow serge ; or rather, 
I should say, my first short cloth, for the vesture was one and indivisi- 
ble, reaching from neck to ankle, a mere body with four limbs : of which 
fashion how little could I then divine the architectural, how much less 
the moral significance !" 

More graceful is the following little picture : " On fine evenings I was 
wont to carry forth my supper (bread-crumb boiled in milk), and eat it 
out of doors. On the coping of the Orchard-wall, which I could reach 
by climbing, or still more easily if Father Andreas would set up the 
pruning-ladder, my porringer was placed: there, many a sunset, have I, 
looking at the distant western Mountains, consumed, not without relish, 
my evening meal. Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of World's 
expectation as Day died, were still a Hebrew Speech for me; neverthe- 
less I was looking at the fair illuminated Letters, and had an eye for 
their gilding." 

With " the little one's friendship for cattle and poultry" we shall not 
much intermeddle. It may be that hereby he acquired a " certain deeper 
sympathy with animated Nature :" but when, we would ask, saw any 
man, in a collection of Biographical Documents, such a piece as this : 
" Impressive enough {bedeutungsvoU) was it to hear, in early morning, 
the Swineherd's horn ; and know that so many hungry happy quadru- 
peds were, on all sides, starting in hot haste to join him, for breakfast 
on the Heath, Or to see them, at eventide, all marching in again, with 
short squeak, almost in military order ; and each, topographically cor- 
rect, trotting off in succession to the right or left, through its own lane, 
to its own dwelling ; till old Kunz, at the Village-head, now left alone, 
blew his last blast, and retired for the night. We are wont to love the 
Hog chiefly in the form of Ham ; yet did not these bristly thick-skinned 
beings here manifest intelligence, perhaps humor of character ; at any 
rate, a touching, trustful submissiveness to Man, — who were he but a 
Swineherd, in darned gabardine, and leather breeches more resembling 
slate or discolored tin breeches, is still the Hierarch of this lower worlds" 

It is maintained, by Helvetius and his set, that an infant of genius is 
quite the same as any other infant, only that certain surprisingly favor- 
able influences accompany him through life, especially through child- 
hood, and expand him, while others lie close-folded and continue dunces. 
Herein, say they, consists the whole difference between an inspired Pro- 
phet and a double-barrelled Game-preserver: the inner man of the one has 
been fostered into generous development ; that of the other, crushed down 
perhaps by vigor of animal digestion, and the like, has exuded and 
evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably stagnant at the bottom of 
his stomach. " With which opinion," cries Teufelsdrockh, " I should as 
soon agree as with this other, that an acorn might, by favorable or 
unfavorable influences of soil and climate, be nursed into a cabbage, or 
the caWDage-seed into an oak, 



44 SAKTOR PlESARTUS. 

"Nevertheless,'" continues he, "I, too, acknowledge the all but om- 
nipotence of early culture and nurture ; hereby we have either a dod- 
dered dwarf bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree ; either a 
sick yellow cabbage, or an edible, luxuriant, green one. Of a truth, it 
is the duty of all men, especially of all philosophers, to note down with 
accuracy the characteristic circumstances of their Education, what fur- 
thered, what hindered, what in any way modified it: lo which duty, 
nowadays so pressing for many a German Autobiographer, I also zea- 
lously address myself" — Thou rogue ! Is it by short-clothes of yellow 
serge, and swine-herd horns, that an infant of genius is educated '? And 
yet, as usual, it ever remains doubtful whether he is laughing in his 
sleeves at these Autobiographical times of ours, or writing from the 
abundance of his own fond ineptitude. For he continues ; '' If among 
the everstreaming currents of Sights, Hearings, Feelings for Pain or 
Pleasure, whereby, as in a Magic Hall, young Gneschen went about 
environed, I might venture to select and specify, perhaps these follow- 
ing were also of the number : 

" Doubtless, as childish sports call forth Intellect, Activity, so the 
young creature's Imagination was stirred up, and a Historical tendency 
given him by the narrative habits of Father Andreas ; who, with his 
battle-reminiscences, and grey, austere, yet hearty patriarchal aspect, 
could not but appear another Ulysses and 'Much-enduring Man.' Ea- 
gerly I hung upon his tales, when listening neighbors enlivened the 
hearth : from these perils and these travels, wild and far almost as Hades 
itself, a dim world of Adventure expanded itself within me. Incredible 
also was the knowledge I acquired in standing by the Old Men under 
the Linden tree : the whole of Immensity Avas yet new to me ; and had 
not these reverend seniors, talkative enough, been employed in partial 
surveys thereof for nigh fourscore years '? With amazement I began to 
discover that Entepfuhl stood in the middle of a Country, of a World ; 
that there was such a thing as History, as Biography ; to which I also, 
one day, by hand and tongue, might contribute. 

" In a like sense worked the Poskoageti (Stage-Coach), which slow- 
rolling under its mountains of men and luggage, wended through our 
Village : northwards, truly, in the dead of night ; yet southwards visibly 
at eventide. Not till my eighth year, did I reflect that this Postwagen 
could be other than some terrestrial Moon, rising and setting by mere 
Law of Nature, like the heavenly one ; that it came on made highways, 
from far cities towards far cities ; weaving them like a monstrous shuttle 
into closer and closer imion. It was then that, independently of Schil- 
ler's Wilhelm Tell, I made this not quite insignificant reflection (so true 
also in spiritual things) : Any road, this simple Entepfuhl road, will lead 
yon to the end of the World I 

" Why mention our Swallows, which out of far Africa as I learned, 
threading their way over seas and mountains, corporate cities and belli- 
gerent nations, yearly found themselves, with the month of May, snug- 
lodged in our Cottage Lobby "? The hospitable Father (for cleanliness' 
sake) had fixed a little bracket, plumb under their nest : there they built, 
and caught flies, and twittered, and bred ; and all, I chiefly, from the 
heart loved them. Bright, nimble creatures, who taught you the mason- 
craft ; nay, stranger still, gave you a masonic incorporation, almost social 
police 1 For if, by ill chance, and when time pressed, your House fell, 
have I not seen five neighborly Helpers next day ; and swashing to and 
fro, with animated, loud, long-drawn chirpings, and activity almost 
super-hirundine, complete it again before nightfall 1 

" But undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl child's-culiure, 
where as in a funnel its manifold influences were concentrated and 
simullaneously poured down on us, was the annual Cattle-fair. Here, 



IDYLLIC. 45 

assembling from all the four winds, came the elements of an unspeaka- 
ble hurly-burly. Nuthrown maids andnutbrown men, all clear-washed, 
loud-laugliing-, bedizened and be-ribanded ; who came for dancing, for 
treating, and if possible for happiness. Topbooted Graziers from the 
North ; Swiss Brokers, Italian Drovers, also top-booted from the 
South ; these with their subalterns in leather jerkins, leather scull-caps, 
and long ox-goads ; shouting in half-articulate speech, amid the inar- 
ticalate barking and bellowing. Apart stood Potters from far Saxony, 
with their crockery in fair rows ; Niirnberg Pedlars, in booths that to 
me seemed richer than Ormuz bazaars; Showmen from the LagoMag- 
giore; detachments of the Wiener Schub (Offscourings of Vienna) 
vociferously superintending games of chance. Ballad-singers brayed. 
Auctioneers grew hoarse ; cheap New Wine (Jieiiriger^ flowed like 
water, still worse confounding the confusion ; and high overall, vaulted 
in ground-and-lofty tumbling, a parti-colored Merry Andrew, like the 
genius of the place and of Life itself, 

" Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence ; under the deep hea- 
venly Firmament ; waited on by the four golden Seasons, with their 
vicissitudes of contribution, for even grim Winter brought its skating- 
matches and shooting-matches, its snow-storms and Christmas carols,, 
— did the Child sit and learn. These things were the Alphabet, whereby 
in after-time he was to syllable and partly read the grand Volum,e of the 
World : what matters it whether such Alphabet be in large gill^tters or 
in small ungilt ones, so you have an eye to read if? For Gneschen^V- 
eager to learn, the very act of looking thereon was a blessedness that . 
gilded all : his existence was a bright^ soft element of Joy; out of which^, 
as in Prospero's Island, wonder after wonder bodied itself forth, to teach 
by charming. 

" Nevertheless I were but a vain dreamer to say, that even then my 
felicity was perfect. I had, once for all, come down from Heaven into 
the Earth. Among the rainbow colors that glowed on my horizon, lay 
even in childhood a dark ring of Care, as yet no thicker than a thread, 
and often quite overshone ; yet always it reappeared, nay, ever waxing 
broader and broader; till in after years it almost overshadowed my 
whole canopy, and threatened to engulf me in final night. It was the 
ring of Necessity, whereby we are all begirt ; happy he for whom a 
kind heavenly Sun brightens it into a ring of Duty, and plays round it 
with beautiful prismatic diffractions ; yet ever, as basis and as bourne 
for our whole being, it is there. 

' " For the first few years of our terrestrial Apprenticeship, we have not 
much work to do ; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are set down mostly 
to look about us over the workshop, and see others work, till we have 
"understood the tools a little, and can handle this and that. If good Pas- ;' 
sivity alone, and not good Passivity and good Activity together, were 
the thing wanted, then was my early position favorable beyond the most. 
In all that respects openness of Sense, affectionate Temper, ingenuous 
Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more could I have wished 1 
On the other side, however, things went not so well. My Active Power 
{Thatkraft) was unfavorably hemmed in; of which misfortune how 
many traces yet abide with me ! In an orderly house, where the litter 
of children's sports is hateful enough, your training is too stoical ; 
rather to bear and forbear than to make and do. I was forbid much : 
wishes in any measure bold I had to renounce ; everywhere a strait 
bond of Obedience inflexibly held me down. Thus already Freewill 
often came in painful collision with Necessity ; so that my tears flowed, 
and at seasons the Child itself might taste that root of bitterness, where- 
with the whole fruitage of our life is mingled and tempered. 
" In which habituation to obedience, truly, it was beyond measure 



46 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

'' safer to err by excess than by defect. Obedience is our universal duty 
I and destiny ; wherein whoso will not bend must break : too early and 
too tlioroughly we cannot be trained to know that Would, in this world. , 
of ours, is a mere zero to Should, and for most part as the smallest ofrr 
fractions even to Shall. Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly 
Discretion, nay, of Morality itself. Let me not quarrel with my up- 
bringing ! It was rigorous, too frugal, compressively secluded, every 
way unscientific : yet in that very strictness and domestic solicitude 
might not there lie the root of deeper earnestness, of the stem from which, 
all noble fruit must grow 7 Above all, how unskilful soever, it was 
loving, it was well meant, honest ; whereby every deficiency was 
helped. My kind Mother, for as such I must ever love the good Gret- 
chen, did me one altogether invaluable service ; she taught me, less 
indeed by word than by act and daily reverent look and habitude, her 
own simple version of the Christian Faith. Andreas, too, attended 
Church ; yet more like a parade-duty, for which he in the other world ex- 
pected pay with arrears — as, I trust, he has received : but my Mother, 
with a true woman's heart, and fine though uncultivated sense, was in 
.J, the strictest acceptation Religious. How indestructibly the Good grows, 
'i'' and propagates itself, even among the weedy entanglements of Evil \ 
The highest whom I knew on Earth I here saw bowed down, with awe 
unspeak^able, before a Higher in Heaven : such things, especially in 
infancj^each inwards to the very core of your being ; mysteriously 
does a lS)ly of Holies build itself into visibility in the mysterious deeps ; 
and Reverence, the divinest in man, springs forth undying from its mean 
envelopment of Fear. Wouldst thou rather be a peasant's son that 
knew, were it never so rudely, there was a God in Heaven and in Man ; 
or a duke's son that only knew there were two and thirty quarters on 
the family-coach '?" 

To which last question we must answer: Beware, O Teufelsdrockh, 
of spiritual pride ! 



CHAPTER III. 

PEDAGOGY. 

Hitherto we see young Gneschen, in his indivisible case of yellow 
serge, borne forward mostly on the arms of kind Nature alone ; seated, 
indeed, and much to his mind, in the terrestrial workshop ; but (except 
his soft hazel eyes, which we doubt not already gleamed with a still 
intelligence) called upon for little voluntary movement there. Hitherto 
accordingly his aspect is rather generic, that of an incipient Philosopher 
and Poet in the abstract : perhaps it would puzzle Herr Heuschrecke 
himself to say wherein the special Doctrine of Clothes is as yet fore- 
shadowed or betokened. For with Gneschen, as with others, the Man 
may indeed stand pictured in the Boy (at least all the pigments are 
there) ; yet only some half of the Man stands in the Child, or young 
Boy, namely, his Passive endowment not his Active. The more impa- 
tient are we to discover what figure he cuts in this latter capacity ; how 
when, to use his own words, " he understands the tools a little, and can 
handle this or that," he will proceed to handle it. 

Here, however, may be the place to state that, in much of our Philo- 
sopher's history, there is something of an almost Hindoo character : nay, 
perhaps in that so well fostered and every-way excellent " Passivity" of 
his, which, with no free development of the antagonist Activity, distin- 
guished Ills childhood, we may detect the rudiments of much that, in 



PEDAGOGY. 47 

after-days, and still in these present days, astonishes the world. For the 
shallow-sighted Teufelsdrockh is ofienest a man without Activity of 
any kind, a No-man ; for the deep-sighted, again, a man with Activity 
almost superabundant, yet so spiritual, close-hidden, enigmatic, that no 
mortal can foresee its explosions, or even when it has exploded, so much 
as ascertain its significance. A dangerous, difficult temper for the mo- 
dern European : above all, disadvantageous in the hero of a Biography ! 
Now as heretofore it will behove the Editor of these pages, were it never 
so unsuccessfully, to do his endeavor. 

Among the earliest tools of any complicacy v/hich a man, especially a 
man of letters, gets to handle, are his Class-books. On this portion of 
his History Teufelsdrockh looks down professedly as indifferent. Read- 
ing he " cannot remember ever to have learned ;" so perhaps had it by 
nature. He says generally : "of the insignificant portion of my educa- 
tion, which depended on Schools, there need almost no notice be taken. 
1 learned what others learn ; and kept it stored by in a corner of my 
head, seeing as yet no manner of use in it. My Schoolmaster, a down- 
bent, brokenhearted, underfoot martyr, as others of that guild are, did 
little for me, except discover that he could do little : he, good soul, pro- 
notmced me a genius, fit for the learned professions ; and that I must be 
sent to the Gymnasium, and one day to the University. Meanwhile, 
what printed thing soever I could meet with I read. My very copper 
pocket-money I laid out on stall-literature : which, as it ac^teulated, 
I with my own hand sewed into volumes. By this means wa^lSreyoung 
head furnished with a considerable miscellany of things and shadows of 
things : History in authentic fragments lay mingled with Fabulous chi- 
meras, wherein also was reality ; and the whole not as dead stuff, but as 
Jving pabulum, tolerably nutritive for a mind as yet so peptic." 

That the Entepfuhl Schoolmaster judged well we now know. In- 
deed, already in the youthful Gneschen, with all his outward stillness, 
there may have been manifest an inward vivacity that promised much ; 
symptoms of a spirit singularly open, thoughtful, almost poetical. Thus, 
to say nothing of his Suppers on the Orchard-wall, and other pheno- 
mena of that earlier period, have many readers of these pages stumbled, 
in their twelfth year, on such reflections as the following '? " It struck 
me much as I sat by the Kuhbach, one silent noontide, and watched it 
flowing, gurgling, to think how this same streamlet had flowed and 
gurgled, through all changes of weather and of fortune, from beyond the 
earliest date of History. Yes, probably, on the morning when Joshua 
forded Jordan ; even as at the mid-day when C^sar, doubtless with dif- 
ficulty, swam the Nile, yet kept his Commentaries dry — this little Kuh- 
bach, assiduous as Tiber, Eurotas, or Siloa, was murmuring on across 
the wilderness, as yet unnamed, unseen : here, too, as in the Euphrates 
and the Ganges, is a Vein or Veinlet of the grand World-circulation of 
Waters, which, with its atmospheric Arteries, has lasted and lasts sim- 
ply with the World. Thou fool ! Nature alone is Antique, and the 
oldest Art a mushroom ; that idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand 
years of age." In which little thought, as in a little fountain, may 
there not lie the beginning of those well-nigh unutterable meditations on 
the grandeur and mystery of Time, and its relation to Eternity, which 
play such a part in this Philosophy of Clothes ? 

Over his Gymnasic and Academic years the Professor by no means 
lingers so lyrical and joyful as over his childhood. ' Green sunny tracts 
there are still ; but intersected by bitter rivulets of tears, here and there " 
stagnating into sour marshes of discontent. " With my first view of 
the Hinterschlag Gymnasium," writes he, " my evil days began. Well 
do I still remember the red sunny Whitsuntide morning, when trotting 
full of hope, by the side of Father Andreas, I entered the main street of 



48 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

the place, and saw its sleeple-clock (then striking Eight) and Schuldthut-m 
(Jail), and the aproned or disaproned Burghers, moving in to breakfast ; 
a little dog, in mad terror, was rushing past ; for some human imps had 
tied a tin kettle to his tail ; thus did the agonized creature, loud-jingling, 
career through the whole length of the Borough, and become notable 
enough. Fit emblem of many a Conquering Hero, to whom Fate (wed- 
ding Fantasy to Sense, as it often elsewhere does) has malignantly 
appended a tin kettle of Ambition, to chase him on; which, the faster 
he runs, urges him the faster, the more loudly and more foolishly ! Fit 
emblem also of much that awaited myself, in that mischievous Den; as 
in the World, whereof it was a portion and epitome ! 

" Alas, the kind beech-rows of Entepfuhl were hidden in the distance : 
I was among strangers, harshly, at best indifferently, disposed towards 
me; the young heart felt, for the iirst time, quite orphaned and alone." 
His schoolfellows, as is usual, persecuted him : " They were boys," he 
says, " mostly rude Boys, and obeyed the impulse of rude Nature, which 
bids the deerherd fall upon any stricken hart, the duck-flock put to death 
any broken- winged brother or sister, and on all hands the strong tyran- 
nise over the weak." He admits that though " perhaps in an unusual 
degree morally courageous," he succeeded ill in battle, and would fain 
have avoided it ; a result as would appear, owing less to his small per- 
son a 1 Matu re (for in passionate seasons, he was " incredibly nimble"), 
than M^fc " virtuous principles :" " if it was disgraceful to be beaten," 
says H^IJat was only a shade less disgraceful to have so much as fought ; 
thus was I drawn two ways at once, and in this important element of 
school-history, the war-element, had little but sorrow." On the whole, 
that same excellent " Passivit]^," vso notable in Teufelsdrockh's childhood, 
is here visibly enough again getting nourishment. " He wept often ; 
indeed to such a degree that he was nicknamed Der Weinende (the 
Tearful), which epithet, till towards his thirteenth year, was indeed not 
quite unmerited. Only at rare intervals did the young soul biu"st forth 
into fire-eyed rage, and, with a Stormfulness {Ungestum) under which 
the boldest quailed, assert that he, too, had Rights of Man, or at least 
of Mankin." In all which, who does not discern a fine flower-tree and 
cinnamon-tree (of genius) nigh choked among pumpkins, redgrass, and 
ignoble shrubs ; and forced, if it would live, to struggle upwards only, 
and not outwards ; into a height quite sickly, and disproportioned to its 
breadth ? 

We find, moreover, that his Greek and Latin were " mechanically" 
taught; Hebrew scarce even mechanically ; much else which they called 
History, Cosmography, Philosophy, and so forth, no better than not at 
all. So that, except inasmuch as nature was still busy ; and he himself 
" went about, as was of old his wont, among the Craftsmen's workshops, 
there learning many things ;" and farther lighted on some small store of 
curious reading, in Hans Wachtel the Cooper's house, where he lodged, 
—his time, it would appear, was utterly wasted. Which facts the Pro- 
fessor has not yet learned to look upon with any contentment. Indeed, 
throughout the whole of thi-s Bag Scorpio, where we now are, and often 
in the following Bag, he shows himself unusually animated on the mat- 
ter of Education, and not without some touch of what we might presume 
to be anger. ■* 

. " My Teachers," says he, " were hide-bound Pedants, without know- 
ledge of man's nature or of boys; or of aught save their lexicons and 
quarterly account-books. Innumerable dead Vocables (no dead Lan- 
guage, for they themselves knew no Language) they crammed into us, 
and called it fostering the growth of mind. How can an inanimate, 
mechanical Gerund-grinder, the like of whom will, in a subsequent cen- 
tury, be manufactured, at Niirnberg, out of wood and leather, foster the 



PEDAGOGY. 4-9 

growth of anything; much more of Mind, which grows, not like a 
y-egetable (by having its roots littered with etymological compost), but 
like a Spirit, by mysterious contact of Spirit ; Thought kindling itself 
at the lire of living Thought '? How shall he give kindling, in whose 
own inward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead 
grammatical cinder % The Hinterschlag Professors knew Syntax 
enough; and of the human soul thus much : that it had a faculty called 
Memory, and could be acted on through the muscular integument by 
appliance of birch rods. 

" Alas, so it everywhere, so will it ever be I till the Hodman is dis- 
charged, or reduced to Hodbearing ; and an Architect is hired, and on 
all hands fitly encouraged : till communities and individuals discover, 
not without surprise, that fashioning the souls of a generation by Know- 
ledge can rank on a level with blowing their bodies to pieces by Gun- 
powder ; that with Generals and Field-marshals for killing, there should 
be world-honored Dignitaries, and were it possible, true God-ordained 
priests, for teaching. But as yet, though the Soldier wears openly, and 
even parades, his butchering-tool, nowhere, far as I have travelled, did 
the Schoolmaster make show of his instructing-tool ; nay, were he to 
walk abroad with birch girt on thigh, as if he therefrom expected 
honor, would not, among the idler class, a certain levity be excited 7" 

In the third year of this Gymnasic period. Father Andreas seems to 
have died : the young Scholar, otherwise so maltreated, saw himself for 
the first time clad outwardly in sables, and inwardly in quite inexpressi- 
ble melancholy. " The dark bottomless Abyss, that lies under our feet, 
had yawned open ; the pale kingdoms of Death, with all their innumer- 
able silent nations and generations stood before him; the inexorable 
word. Never ! now first showed its meaning. My mother wept, and her 
sorrow got vent ; but in my heart there lay a whole lake of tears, pent 
up in silent desolation. Nevertheless, the anw^orn Spirit is strong ; Life 
is so healthful that it even finds nourishment in. Death : these stern ex- 
periences, planted down by Memory in my Imagination, rose there to a 
whole cypress forest, sad but beautiful ; waving, with not unmelodious 
sighs, in dark luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine, through long years of 
youth : — as in manhood also it does, and will do ; for I have now pitched 
my tent under a Cypress tree ; the Tomb is now my inexpungable For- 
tress, ever close by the gate of which I look upon the hostile armaments, 
and pains and penalties, of tyrannous Life placidl}' enough, and listen 
to its loudest threatenings with a still smile. O ye loved ones, that alrea- 
dy sleep in the noiseless Bed of Rest, whom in life I could only weep for 
and never help ; and ye, who wide-scattered still toil lonely in the mon- 
ster-bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground with your blood, — yet a lit- 
tle while, and we shall all meet there, and our Mother's bosom will 
screen us all : and Oppression's harness, and Sorrow's fije-whip, and all 
the Gehenna Bailiffs that patrol and inhabit ever-vexed Time, cannot 
thenceforth harm us any more ! " 

Close by which rather beautiful apostrophe, lies a labored Character 
of the deceased Andreas Futteral ; of his natural ability, his deserts in 
life (as Prussian Sergeant) ; with long historical inquiries into the gene- 
alogy of the Futteral family, here traced back as far as Henry the 
Fowler : the whole of which we pass over, not without astonishment. It 
only concerns us to add that now was the time when Mother Gretchen 
revealed to her foster-son that he was not at all of this kindred : or indeed 
of any kindred, having come into historical existence in the way already 
known to us. " Thus was I doubly orphaned," says he, " bereft not only 
of Possession, but even of Remembrance, Sorrow and Wonder, here 
suddenly united, could not but produce abundant fruit. Such a dis- 
"^«iosure, in such a season, struck its roots through my whole nature : 
5 



50 SAKTOR RESARTUS. 

ever till the years of mature manhood, it mingled with my whole 
thoughts, was as the stem whereon all my day-dreams and night- 
dreams grew. A certain poetic elevation, yet also a correspond- 
ing civic depression, it naturally imparted : / was like no other ; in 
which fixed-idea, leading sometimes to highest, and oftener to frightfal- 
est results, may there not lie the first spring of Tendencies, that in my 
Life have become remarkable enough '? As in birth, so in action, spe- 
culation, and social position, my fellows are perhaps not numerous," 
-^ In. the Bag Sagittarius, as we at length discover, Teufelsdrockh has 
become a University man; though how, when, or of what quality, will 
nowhere disclose itself with the smallest certainty. Few things, in the 
way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, can now surprise our 
readers ; not even the total want of dates, almost without a parallel in a 
Biographical work. So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always found, 
and must always look to find, these scattered Leaves. In Sagittarius, 
however, Teufelsdrockh begins to show himself even more than usually 
Sibylline : fragments of all sorts ; scraps of regular Memoir, College 
Exercises, Programs, Professional Testimoniums, Milkscores, torn Bil- 
lets, sometimes to appearance of an amatory cast; all blown together as 
if by merest chance, henceforth bewilder the sane Historian. To com- 
bine any picture of these University, and the subsequent, years ; much 
more, to decipher therein any illustrative primordial elements of the 
Clothes-Philosophy, becomes such a problem as the reader may imagine. 
So much we can see ; darkly, as through the foliage of some waver- 
ing thicket: a youth of no common endowment, that has passed happily 
through Childhood, less happily yet still vigorously through Boyhood, 
now at length perfect in " dead vocables," and set down as he hopes, by 
the living Fountain, there to superadd Ideas and Capabilities. From 
such Fountain he draws, diligently, thirstily, yet nowise with his whole 
heart, for the water nowise suits his palate ; discouragements, entangle- 
ments, aberrations are discoverable or supposable. Nor perhaps are 
even pecuniary distresses wanting; for "the good Gretchen, who in 
spite of advices from not disinterested relatives has sent him hither, must 
after a time withdraw her willing but too feeble hand." Nevertheless 
^n an atmosphere of Poverty and manifold Chagrin, the Humor of that 
young Soul, what character is in him, first decisively reveals itself; and, 
like strong sunshine in weeping skies, gives out variety of colors, some 
of which are prismatic. Thus with the aid of Time, and of what Time 
brings, has the stripling Diogenes Teufelsdrockh waxed into manly 
stature ; and into so questionable an aspect, that we ask with new eager- 
ness How he specially came by it, and regret anew that there is no more 
explicit answer. Certain of the intelligible and partially significant 
fragments, which are few in number, shall be extracted from that Limbo 
of a Paperbag, and presented Avith the usual preparation. 

As if, in the Bag Scorpio, Teufelsdrockh had not already expectorat- 
ed his antipedagogic spleen ; as if, from the name Sagittarius, he had 
thought himself called upon to shoot arrows, we here again fall in with 
such matter as this: " The University where I was educated still stands 
vivid enough in my remembrance, and I know its name well ; which 
name, however, I, from tenderness to existing interests and persons, 
shall in no wise divulge. It is my painful duty to say that, out of Eng- 
land and Spain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered Universi- 
ties. This is indeed a time when right Education is, as nearly as may 
be, impossible : however, in degrees of wrongness there is no limit : nay, 
I can conceive a worse system than that of the Nameless itself; as poi- 
soned victual may be worse than absolute hunger. 

_" It is written. When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the 
ditch : wherefore, in such circumstances, may it not sometimes be safer, 



PEDAGOGY. 9^ 

if both leader and led simply — sit still 1 Had ycu, anywhere in Crim 
Tartary, walled in a square enclosure ; furnished it with a small, ill- 
chosen Library ; and then turned loose into it eleven hundred Christian 
striplings, to tumble about as they listed, from three to seven years ; cer- 
tain persons, under the title of Professors, being stationed at the gates, to 
declare aloud that it was a University, and exact considerable admission 
fees, — you had, not indeed in mechanical structure, yet in spirit and re- 
sult, some imperfect resemblance of our High Seminary. I say, imper- 
fect; for if our mechanical structure was quite other, so neither was our 
result altogether the same : unhappily, we were not in Crim Tartary, 
but in a corrupt European city, full of smoke and sin ; moreover, in the 
middle of a Public, which, without far costlier apparatus, than that of 
the Square Enclosure, and Declaration aloud, you could not be sure of 
gulling, 

"Gullible, however, by fit apparatus, all Publics are; and gulled, 
with the most surprising profit. Towards anything like a Statistics of 
Imposture, indeed, little as yet has been done : with a strange indiffer- 
ence, our Economists, nigh bmied under tables for minor Branches of 
Industry, have altogether overlooked the grand all-overtopping Hypo- 
crisy Branch ; as if our whole arts of Puffery, of Gluackery, Priestcraft, 
Kingcraft, and the innumerable other crafts and mysteries of that genus, 
had not ranked in Productive Industry at all ! Can any one, for exam- 
ple, so much as say. What monies, in Literature and Shoeblacking, are 
realised by actual Instruction and actual jet Polish ; what by fictitious- 
persuasive Proclamation of such ; specifying, in distinct items, the dis- 
tributions, circulations, disbursements, incoming of said monies, with 
the smallest approach to accuracy 1 But to ask. How far, in all the se- 
veral infinitely complected departments of social business, in govern- 
ment, education, in manual, commercial, intellectual fabrication of every 
sort, man's Want is supplied by true Ware ; how far by the mere Ap- 
pearance of true Ware : — in other words. To what extent, by what me- 
thods, with what effects, in various tiAes and countries. Deception takes 
the place and wages of Performance : here truly is an Inquiry big with 
results for the future time, but to which hitherto only the vaguest answer 
can be given. If for the present, in our Europe, we estimate the ratio 
of Ware to appearance of Ware so high even as at One to a Hundred 
(which, considering the Wages of a Pope, Russian Autocrat, or English, 
Game-preserver, is probably not far from the mark), — what almost pro- 
digious saving may there not be anticipated, as the Statistics of Impos- 
ture advances, and so the manufacturing of Shams (that of Realities 
rising into clearer and clearer distinction therefrom) gradually declines, 
and at length becomes all but wholly unnecessary ! 

" This for the coming golden ages. What I had to remark, for the 
present brazen one, is, that in several provinces, as in Education, Polity, 
Religion, where so much is wanted and indispensable, and so little can 
as yet be furnished, probably Imposture is of sanative, anodyne nature, 
and man's Gullibility not his worst blessing. Suppose your sinews of 
war quite broken ; I mean your military chest insolvent, forage all but 
exhausted ; and that the whole army is about to mutiny, disband, and 
cut your and each other's throat, — then were it not well could you, as if 
by miracle, pay them in any sort of fairy-money, feed them on coagulat- 
ed water, or mere imagination of meat ; whereby, till the real supply 
came up, they might be kept together, and quiet 1 Such perhaps was 
the aim of Nature, who does nothing without aim, in furnishing her fa- 
vorite, Man, with this his so omnipotent or rather omni-patient Talent 
of being Gulled. 

" HoAV beautifully it works, with a little mechanism ; nay, almost 
makes mechanism for itself! These Professors in the Nameless lived 



52 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

with, ease, with safety, by a mere Reputation, constructed in past times, 
and then, too, with no great effort, by quite another class of persons. 
Which Reputation, like a strong brisk-going undershot- wheel, sunk iato 
the general current, bade fair, with only a little annual repainting on 
their part, to hold long together, and of its own accord assiduously grind 
for them, Happy that it was so for the Millers! They themselves 
needed not to work ; their attempts at working, at what they called Edu- 
cating, now when I look back on it, fill me with a certain mute admira- 
tion. 

" Besides all this we boasted ourselves a Rational University ; in the 
highest degree, hostile to Mysticism ; thus was the young vacant mind 
"furnished with much talk about Progress of the Species, Dark Ages, 
Prejudice, and the like ; so that all were quickly enough blown out into 
a state of windy argumentativeness ; whereby the better sort must soon 
end in sick, impotent Scepticism ; the worser sort explode {crepiren) in 
finished Self-conceit and to all spiritual intents become dead. — But this 
too is a portion of mankind's lot. If our era is the Era of Unbeliel^ 
why murmur under it ; is there not a better coming, nay, come 1 As in 
longdrawn Systole and longdrawn Diastole, must the period of Faith 
alternate with the period of Denial ; must the vernal growth, the sum- 
mer luxuriance of all Opinions, Spiritual Representations and Creations, 
be followed by, and again follow, the autumnal decay, the winter disso- 
lution. For man lives in Time, has his whole earthly being, endeavor, 
and destiny shaped for him by Time : only in the transitory Time-Sym- 
bol is the ever-motionless Eternity we stand on made manifest. And 
yet, in such winter-seasons of Denial, it is for the nobler-minded per- 
haps a comparative misery to have been born, and to be awake, and 
work ; and for the duller a felicity, if like hibernating animals, safe- 
lodged in some Salamanca University, or Sybaris City, or other super- 
stitious or voluptuous Castle of Indolence, they can slumber through, in 
stupid dreams, and only awaken ^hen the loud-roaring hailstorms have 
all done their work, and to our prayers and martyrdoms the new Spring- 
has been vouchsafed." 

That in the environment, here mysteriously enough shadowed forth, 
Teufelsdrockh must have felt ill at ease, cannot be doubtful. " The 
hungry young," he says, " looked up to their spiritual Nurses ; and, for 
food, were bidden eat the east wind. What vain jargon of controversial 
Metaphysic, Etymology, and mechanical Manipulation falsely named 
Science, was current there, I indeed learned, better perhaps than the 
most. Among eleven hundred Christian youths, there will not be want- 
ing some eleven eager to learn. By collision with such, a certain warmth. 
a certain polish was communicated : by instinct and happy accident, I 
took less to rioting (renommiren), than to thinking and reading, which 
latter also I was free to do. Nay, from the chaos of that Library, I suc- 
ceeded in fishing up more books perhaps than had been known to the 
very keepers thereof The foundation of a Literary Life was hereby 
laid : I learned, on my own strength, to read fluently in almost all culti- 
vated languages, on almost all subjects, and sciences ; farther, as man is 
ever the prime object to man, already it was my favorite employment to 
read character in speculation, and from the Writing to construe the 
Writer, A certain groundplan of Human Nature and Life began to 
fashion itself in me ; wondrous enough, now when I look back on it ; 
for my whole Universe, physical and spiritual, was as yet a machine ! 
However, such a conscious, recognized groundplan, the truest I had, was 
beginning to be there, and by additional experiments, might be corrected 
and indefinitely extended." 

Thus from poverty does the strong educe nobh r wealth ; thus in the 
destitution of the wild desert, does our young Ishmael acquire for him- 



PEDAGOGY. 53 

self the highest of all possessions., that of Self-help, Nevertheless a 
desert this was, waste, and howling with savage monsters. Teufels' 
drockh gives us long details of his "fever-paroxysms of Doubt;" ki.-, 
Inquiries concerning Miracles, and the Evidences of Religious Faith , 
and how " in the sileni night-watches, still darker in his heart than over 
sky and earth, he has cast himself before the All-seeing, and with audi- 
ble prayers, cried vehemently for Light, for deliverance from Death and 
the Grave. Not till after long years, and unspeakable agonies, did the 
believing heart surrender ; sink into spell-bound sleep, under the night- 
mare, Unbelief ; and, in this hag-ridden dream, mistake God's fair liv- 
ing world for a pallid, vacant Hades and extinct Pandemonium. But 
through such Purgatory pain," continues he, "it is appointed us to pass: 
tirst must the dead Letter of Religion own itself dead, and drop piece- 
meal into dust, if the living Spirit of Religion, freed from this its char- 
nel-house, is to arise on us, newborn of Heaven, and with new-healing 
under its wings." 

To which Purgatory pains, seemingly severe enough, if we add a 
liberal measure of Earthly distresses, want of practical guidance, want of 
sympathy, want of money, want of hope ; and all this in ihe fervid sea- 
son of youth, so exaggerated in imagining, so boundless in desires, 
yet here so poor in means, — do we not see a strong incipient spirit op- 
pressed and overloaded from without and from within ; the fire of genius 
struggling up among fuel-wood of the greenest, and as yet with more 
of bitter vapor than of clear flame "] 

From various fragments of Letters and other documentary scraps, it 
is to be inferred that Teufelsdrockh, isolated, shy, retiring as he was, 
had not altogether escaped notice ; certain established men are aware of 
his existence ; and, if stretching out no helpful hand, have at least their 
eyes on him. He appears, though in dreary enough humor, to be ad- 
dressing himself to the Profession of Law ; whereof, indeed, the world 
has seen him a public graduate. But omitting these broken, unsatisfac- 
tory thrums of Economical relation, let us present rather the following 
small thread of Moral relation ; and therewith, the reader for himself 
weaving it in at the right place, conclude our dim arras-picture of these 
University years. 

" Here also it was that I formed acquaintance with Herr Towgood, or, 
as it is perhaps better written, Herr Toughgut ; a young person of* quality 
(von Adel), from the interior parts of England. He stood connected, by 
blood and hospitality, with the Counts von Zahdarm, in this quarter of 
Germany ; to which noble Family I likewise was, by his means, with 
all friendliness brought near. Towgood had a fair talent, unspeakably 
ill-cultivated ; with considerable humor of character : and, bating his 
total ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing and a little Gram- 
mar, showed less of that aristocratic impassivity, and silent fury, than 
for most part belongs to Travellers of his nation. To him I owe my iirst 
practical knowledge of the English and their ways ; perhaps also some- 
thing of the partiality with which I have ever since regarded that 
singular people. Towgood was not without an eye, could he have come 
at any light. Invited doubtless by the presence of the Zahdarm Family, 
he had travelled hither, in the almost frantic hope of perfecting his 
studies ; he, whose studies had been as yet those of infancy, hither to a 
University where so much as the notion of perfection, not to say the 
effort after it, no longer existed ! Often we would condole over the hard 
destiny of the Young in this era : how, after all our toil, we were to be 
turned out into the world, with beards on oiu* chins indeed, but with few 
other attributes of manhood ; no existing thing that we were trained to 
Act on, nothing that we could so much as Believe. 'How has our 
head on the outside a polished Hat,' would Towgood exclaim, 'and in 



54« SARTOR RESARTUS. 

the inside Vacancy, or a froth of Vocables and Attorney Logic ! At a 
small cost men are educated to make leather into shoes ; but, at a great 
cost, what am I educated to make 1 By Heaven, Brother ! what I have 
already eaten and worn, as I came thus far, would endow a considerable 
Hospital of Inciu-ables.' — ' Man, indeed,' I would answer, 'has a Diges- 
tive Faculty, which must be kept working, were it even partly by stealth. 
But as for our Miseducation, make not bad worse ; waste not the time 
yet ours, in trampling on thistles because they have yielded us no figs. 
Frisch zu, Bruder ! Here are Books, and we have brains to read them ; 
here is a whole Earth and a whole Heaven, and we have eyes to look 
on them : Frisch zu f 

" Often also our talk was gay ; not without brilliancy, and even fire. 
We looked out on Life, with its strange scaflfolding, where all at once 
harlequins dance, and men are beheaded and quartered : motley, not un- 
terrific was the aspect ; but we looked on it like brave youths. For my- 
self, these were perhaps my most genial hours. Towards this young 
warmhearted, strongheaded and wrongheaded Herr Towgood, I was 
even near experiencing the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship. Yes, 
foolish Heathen that 1 was, I felt that, under certain conditions, I could 
have loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and been his brother 
once and always. By degrees, however, I understood the new time, and 
its wants. If man's Soul is indeed, as in the Finnish Language, and 
Utilitarian Philosophy, a kind of Stomach, what else is the true meaning 
of Spiritual Union but an Eating together'? Thus we, instead of 
Friends, are Dinner-guests; and here as elsewhere have cast away 
chimeras." 

So ends, abruptly as is usual, and enigmatically, this little incipient 
romance. "What henceforth becomes of the brave Herr Towgood, or 
Toughgut 1 He has dived under, in the Autobiographical Chaos, and 
swims we see not where. Does any reader " in the interior parts of 
England" know of such a man "? 



CHAPTER IV. 



GETTING UNDER WAY. 



" Thus nevertheler3S," writes our Autobiographer, apparently as quit- 
ting College, "was there realised Somewhat; namely, I, Diogenes Teu- 
felsdrockh: a visible Temporary Figure {Zeitbild), occupying some 
cubic feet of Space, and containing within it Forces both physical and 
spiritual ; hopes, passions, thoughts ; the whole wondrous furniture, in 
more or less perfection, belonging to that mystery, a Man. Capabilities 
there were in me to give battle, in some small degree, against the great 
Empire of Darkness : does not the very Ditcher and Delver, with his 
spade, extinguish many a thistle and puddle; and so leave a little Order, 
where he found the opposite 1 Nay your very Day-moth has capabili- 
ties in this kind ; and ever organizes something (into its own Body, if 
no otherwise), which was before Inorganic ; and of mute dead air makes 
living music, though only of the faintest, by humming. 

"How much more one whose capabilities are spiritual; who has 
learned, or begun learning, the grand thaumaturgic art of Thought! 
Thaumaturgic I name it ; for hitherto all Miracles have been wTought 
thereby, and henceforth innumerable will be wrought ; whereof we, even 
hi these days, witness some. Of the Poet's and Prophet's inspired Mes- 
sage, and how it makes and unmakes whole worlds, I shall forbear men- 
tion : but cannot the dullest hear Steam-engines clanking around him ? 
Has he not seen the Scottish Brassmith's Idea (and this but a mecliani- 



GETTING UNDER WAY. 5& 

cal one) travelling on fire-wings round the Cape, and across two Oceans ; 
and stronger than any other Enchanter's Familiar, on all hands unwea- 
riedly fetching and carrying : at home, not only weaving Cloth ; but ra- 
pidly enough overturning the whole old system of Society ; and, for Feu- 
dalism and Preservation of the Game, preparing us, by indirect but sure 
methods, Industrialism and the Government of the Wisest. Truly a 
Thinking Man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can have ; 
every time such a one announces himself, I doubt not, there runs a shud- 
der through the Nether Empire ; and new Emissaries are trained, with 
new tactics, to, if possible, entrap him, and hoodwink and handculf him. 
"With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of the Universe, 
been called. Unhappy it is, however, that though born to the amplest 
Sovereignty, in this way, with no less than sovereign right of Peace and 
War against the Time-Prince (Zeilfilrst), or Devil, and all his Domi- 
nions, your coronation ceremony costs such trouble, your sceptre is so 
difficult to get at, or even to get eye on !" 

By which last wiredrawn similitude, does Teufelsdrockh mean no 
more than that young men find obstacles in what we call " gettmg under 
way '?" "Not what I Have," continues he, " but what I Do is my King- 
dom. To each is given a certain inward Talent, a certain outward En- 
vironment of Fortune ; to each, by wisest combination of these two, a 
certain maximum of Capability. But the hardest problem were ever 
this first : To find by study of yourself, and of the ground you stand on, 
what your combined inward and outward Capability specially is. For, 
alas, our young soul is all budding with Capabilities, and we see not yet 
which is the main and true one. Always too the new man is in a new 
time, under new conditions ; his course can be the facsimile of no prior 
one, but is by its nature original. And then how seldom will the out- 
ward Capability fit the inward: though talented wonderfully enough, 
we are poor, unfriended, dyspeptical, bashful ; nay what is worse than 
all, we are foolish. Thus, in a whole imbroglio of Capabilities, we go 
stupidly groping about, to grope which is ours, and often clutch the 
wrong one : in this mad work, must several years of our small term be 
spent, till the purblind Youth, by practice, acquire notions of distance, 
and become a seeing Man. Nay, many so spend their whole term, and 
in ever new expectation, ever new disajipointment, shift from enterprise 
to enterprise, and from side to side ; till at length, as exasperated strip- 
lings of threescore and ten, they shift into their last enterprise, that of 
getting buried. 

" Such, since the most of us are too ophthalmic, would be the general 
fate ; were it not that one thing saves us : our Hunger. For on this 
ground, as the prompt nature of Hunger is well known, must a prompt 
choice be made : hence have we, with wise foresight. Indentures and 
Apprenticeships for our irrational young ; whereby, in due season, the 
vague universality of a Man shall find himself ready-moulded into a 
specific Craftsman ; and so thenceforth work, with much or with little 
waste of Capability as it may be ; yet not with the worst waste, that of 
time. Nay even in matters spiritual, since the spiritual artist too is born 
blind, and does not, like certain other creatures, receive sight in nine 
days, but far later, sometimes never, — is it not well that there should be 
what we call Professions, or Bread-studies (Brodtzwecke), preappointed 
us 1 Here, circling like the gin-horse, for whom partial or total blind- 
ness is no evil, the Bread-artist can travel contentedly round and round, 
still fancying that it is forward and forward, and realise much : for him- 
self victual ; for the world an additional horse's power in the grand 
corn-mill or hemp-mill of Economic Society. For me too had such a 
leading-string been provided : only that it proved a neck-halter, and had 
nigh throttled me, till I broke it off". Then, in the words of Ancient 



56 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

Pistol, did the World generally become mine oyster, which I, by strength 
or cunning, was to open, as I would and could. Almost had 1 deceased 
{fast war ichumgekommen)^ so obstinately did it continue shut." 

We see here, significantly foreshadowed, the spirit of much that was 
to befall our Autobiographer ; the historical embodyment of which, as it 
painfully takes shape in his Life, lies scattered, in dim disastrous details, 
through this Bag Pisces^ and those that follow. A young man of high, 
talent, and high though still temper, like a young mettled colt, " breaks 
otF his neck-halter," and bounds forth from his peculiar manger, into the 
wide world ; which, alas, he finds all rigorously fenced in. Richest 
clover-fields tempt his eye ; but to him the}'- are forbidden pasture : either 
pining in progressive starvation, he must stand ; or, in mad exaspera- 
tion, must rush to and fro, leaping against sheer stone-walls, which he 
cannot leap over, which only lacerate and lame him ; till at last, after 
thousand attempts and endurances, he, as if by miracle, clears his way; 
not indeed into luxuriant and luxurious clover, yet into a certain bosky 
wilderness where existence is still possible, and Freedom though waited 
on by Scarcity is not without sweetness. In a word, Teufelsdrockh 
having thrown up his legal Profession, finds himself without landmark 
of outward guidance ; whereby his previous want of decided Belief, or 
inward guidance, is frightfully aggravated. Necessity urges him on ; 
Time will not stop, neither can he, a Son of Time ; wild passions with- 
out solacement, wild faculties without employment, ever vex and agi- 
tate him. He, too, must enact that stern Monodrama, No Object and no 
Rest ; must front its successive destinies, work through to its catastrophe, 
and deduce therefrom what moral he can. 

Yet let us be just to him, let us admit that his " neck-halter " sat no- 
wise easy on him ; that he was in some degree forced to break it ofl'. If 
we look at the young man's civic position, in this Nameless Capital, as 
he emerges from its Nameless University, we can discern well that it 
was far from enviable. His first Law Examination he has come 
through triumphantly ; and can even boast that the Examen Rigorosum 
need not have frightened him : but though he is hereby " an Auscultator 
of respectability," what avails if? There is next to no employment (o 
be had. Neither, for a youth without connexions, is the process of Ex- 
pectation very hopeful in itself; nor for one of his disposition much 
cheered from without. " My fellow Auscultators," he says, " were Aus- 
cultators: they dressed, and digested, and talked articulate words ; other 
vitality showed they almost none. Small speculation in those eyes, that 
they did glare withal ! Sense neither for the high nor for the deep, nor 
for aught human or divine, save only for the faintest scent of coming Pre- 
ferment." In which words, indicating a total estrangement on the part, 
of Teufelsdrockh, may there not also lurk traces of a bitterness as from 
wounded vanity 1 Doubtless these prosaic Auscultators may have sniff- 
ed at him, with his strange ways ; and tried to hate, and, what was 
much more impossible, to despise him. Friendly communion, in any 
case, there could not be : already has the young Teufelsdrockh left the 
other young geese ; and swims "apart, though as yet uncertain whether 
he himself is cygnet or gosling. 

Perhaps, too, what little employment he had was performed ill, at best 
unpleasantly, " Great practical method and expertness" he may brag 
of; but is there not also great practical pride, though deep-hidden, only 
the deeper-seated'? So shy a man can never have been popular. We 
figure to ourselves, how in those days he may have played strange freaks 
with his Independence, and so forth : do not his own words betoken as 
much 1 " Like a very young person, I imagined it was with W^ork 
alone, and not also with Folly and Sin, in myself and others, that I had 
been appointed to struggle." Be this as it may, his progress from the 



GETTING UNDER WAY. &T 

passive Auscultatorship, towards any active Assessorsliip, is evidently 
of the slowest. By degrees, those same established men, once partially 
inclined to patronise him, seem to withdraw their countenance, and gi\^e 
him up as " a man of genius ;" against which procedure he, in these Pa- 
pers, loudly protests. " As if," says he, " the higher did not presuppose 
the lower ; as if he who can fly into heaven, could not also walk post if 
he resolved on it ! But the world is an old woman, and mistakes any 
gilt farthing for a gold coin; whereby being often cheated she will 
thenceforth trust nothing but the common copper." 

How our winged sky-messenger, unaccepted as a terrestrial runner, 
contrived, in the meanwhile, to keep himself from flying skyward with- 
out return, is not too clear from these Documents. Good old Gretchen 
seems to have vanished from the scene, perhaps from the Earth ; other 
Horn of Plenty, or even of Parsimony, nowhere flows from him ; so that 
" the prompt nature of Hunger being well known," we are not without 
our anxiety. From private Tuition, in never so many languages and 
sciences, the aid derivable is small ; neither, to use his own words, 
" does the young Adventurer hitherto suspect in himself any literary gift ; 
but at best earns bread-and- water wages, by his wide faculty of Trans- 
lation. " Nevertheless," continues he, "that I subsisted is clear, for you 
find me even now alive." Which fact, however, except upon the prin- 
ciple of our true-hearted, kind old Proverb, that "there is ever Life for 
the Living," we must profess ourselves unable to explain. 

Certain Landlord's Bills, and other economic Documents, bearing the 
mark of Settlement, indicate that he was not without money ; but, like 
an independent Hearth-holder, if not House-holder, paid his way. 
IJere also occur, among many others, two little mutilated Notes, which 
perhaps throw light on his condition. The first has now no date, or 
writer's name, but a huge Blot; and runs to this effect: "the [^Inkblot), 
lied dowTi by previous promise, cannot, except by best wishes, forward 
the Herr Teufelsdrockh's views on the Assessorship in question ; and 
sees himself under the cruel necessity of forbearing for the present, what 
were otherwise his duty and joy, to assist in opening the career for a 
man of genius, on whom far higher triumphs are yet waiting." The 
other is on gilt paper; and interests us like a sort of epistolary mummy 
now dead, yet which once lived and beneficially worked. We give it 
in the original : " Herr Teufelsdrdckh wird von der Fran Grafinn, auf 
Donnerstag,zu7n -£Esthetischen Thee, sckdnstens eingeladen." 

Thus, in answer to a cry for solid pudding, whereof there is the most 
urgent need, comes, epigrammatically enough, the invitation to a wash of 
quite Gmd Esthetic Tea! How Teufelsdrockh, now at actual hand- 
grips with Destiny herself, may have comported himself among these 
Musical and Literary Dilettanti of both sexes, like a hungry lion invited 
to a feast of chickenweed, we can only conjecture. Perhaps in expres- 
sive silence and abstinence : otherwise if the lion, in such case, is to 
feast at all, it cannot be on the chickenweed, but only on the chickens. 
For the rest, as this Frau Grafinn dates from the Zdhdarm House, she 
can be no other than the Countess and mistress of the same ; whose in- 
tellectual tendencies, and good will to Teufelsdrockh, whether on the 
footing of Herr Towgood, or on his own footing, are hereby manifest. 
That some sort of relation, indeed, continued for a time to connect our 
Autobiographer, though perhaps feebly enough, with this noble House, 
we have elsewhere express evidence. Doubtless, if he expected patron- 
age, it was in vain ; enough for him if he here obtained occasional 
glimpses of the great world, from which we at one time fancied him to 
have been always excluded. " The Zahdarms," says he, " lived in the 
soft, sumptuous garniture of Aristocracy; whereto Literature and 
Art. attracted and attached from without, must serve as the handsomest 



i 



58 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

fringing. It was lo the Gnddigen Frau (her Ladyship) that this lattei 
improvement was due : assiduously she gathered, dexterously she fitted 
on, what fringing was to be had; lace or cobweb, as the place yielded," 
Was Teufelsdrockh also a fringe, of lace or cobweb ; or promising to 
be such 1 " With His Excelleiiz (the Couni)," continues he, " J. have 
more than once had the honor to converse ; chiefly on general aflairs,. 
and the aspect of the world, which he, though now past middle life, 
viewed in no unfavorable light ; finding indeed, except the outrooting 
of Journalism {die auszurottende Journalistic), little to desiderate therein. 
On some points, as his Excellenz was not uncholeric, 1 found it more 
pleasant to keep silence. Besides, his occupation being that of Owning 
Land, there might be faculties enough, which, as superfluous for such 
use, were little developed in him." 

That to Teufelsdrockh the aspect of the world was nowise so fault- 
less, and many things, besides the " Outrooting of Journalism," might 
have seemed improvements, we can readily conjecture. With nothing 
but a barren Auscultatorship from without, and so many mutinous 
thoughts and wishes from within, his position was no easy one, " The 
Universe," he says, " was as a mighty Sphinx-riddle, which I Imew 
so little of, yet must rede, or be devoured. In red streaks of unspeaka- 
ble gxandeur, yet also in the blackness of darkness, was Life, to my too- 
nnfurnished Thought, unfolding itself A strange contradiction lay ia 
me ; and I as yet knew not the solution of it ; knew not that spiritual 
music can spring only from discords set in unison : that but for Evil 
there were no Good, as victory is only possible by Battle." 

" I have heard affirmed (surely in jest)," observes he elsewhere, "by 
not unphilanthropic persons, that it were a real increase of human hap- 
piness, could all young men under the age of nineteen be covered under 
barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible ; and there left to folloAV their 
lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the 
age of twenty-five. With which suggestion, at least as considered in 
the light of a practical scheme, I need scarcely say I nowise coincide. 
Nevertheless it is plausibly urged that, as young ladies {Madchen) are, 
to mankind, precisely the most delightful in those years ; so young gen- 
tlemen {Bubchen) do then attain their maximum of detestability. Such 
gawks {Geckeii) are they, and foolish peacocks, and yet with such a 
vulturous hunger for self-indulgence ; so obstinate, obstreperous, vain- 
glorious ; in all senses so froward and so forward. No mortal's endea- 
vor or attainment will in the smallest content the as yet unendeavoring, 
unattaining young gentleman ; but he could make it all infinitely better, 
and more worthy of him. Life everywhere is the most manageable 
matter, simple as a question in the Rule of Three : multiply yaur second 
and third term together, divide the product by the first, and yom- quo- 
tient will be the answer — which you are but an ass if you cannot come 
at. The booby has not yet found out, by any trial, that, do what one , 
will, there is ever a cursed fraction, oftenest a decimal repeater, and n^^ 
net integer quotient so much as to be thought of" 

In which passage, does there not lie an implied confession that Teu- 
felsdrockh himself, besides his outward obstructions, had an inward, still 
greater to contend with : namely, a certain temporary, youtliful, yet still 
afflictive derangement of head'? Alas ! on the former side alone his 
case was hard enough. " It continues ever true," says he, " that Saturn, 
or Chronos, or whaf we call Time, devours all his Children: only by- 
incessant Running, by incessant Working, may you (for some three- 
score and ten years) escape him ; and you, too, he devours at last. Can 
any Sovereign, or Holy Alliance of Sovereigns, bid Time stand still ; 
even in thought, shake themselves free of Time 1 Our whole terrestrial 
being is based on Time, and built of Time ; it is wholly a Movement, 



GETTING UNDER WAY. 50 

a Time-imp Lilse : Time is tiie author of it, the material of it. Hence 
also our whole Duty, which is to Move, to Work, — in the right direc- 
tion. Are not our Bodies and our Souls in continual movement, whe- 
ther we will or not ; in a continual Waste, requiring a continual Repair ? 
Utmost satisfaction of our whole outward and inward Wants were but 
satisfaction for a space of Time ; thus whatso we have done, is done, 
and for us annihilated, and ever must we go and do anew, O Time- 
Spirit, how hast thou environed and imprisoned us, and sunk us so deep 
in thy troublous dim Time-Element ; that, only in lucid moments, can 
so much as glimpses of our upper Azure Home be revealed to us ! Me, 
however, as a Son of Time, imhappier than some others, was Time 
threatening to eat quite prematurely ; for strive as I might, there was no 
good Running, so obstructed was the path, so gyved were the feet," 
That is to say, we presume, speaking in the dialect of this lower world, 
that Teufelsdrdckh's whole duty and necessity was, like other men's, 
" to work, — in the right direction," and that no work was to be had ; 
whereby he became wretched enough. As was natural : with haggard 
Scarcity threatening him in the distance ; and so vehement a soul lan- 
guishing in restless inaction, and forced thereby, like Sir Hudibras's 
sword by rust, 

To eat into itself, for lack 

Of something else to liew and hack ! 

But on the whole, that same " excellent Passivity," as it has all along 
done, is here again vigorously flourishing ; in which circumstance, may 
we not trace the beginnings of much that now characterizes our Pro- 
fessor; and perhaps, in faint rudiments, the origin of the Clothes-Philo- 
sophy itself? Already the attitude he has assumed towards the World 
is too defensive ; not, as would have been desirable, a bold attitude of 
attack. " So far hitherto," he says, " as I had mingled with mankind, 
I was notable, if for anything, for a certain stillness of manner, which, 
as my friends often rebukingly declared, did but ill express the keen 
ardor of my feelings. I, in truth, regarded men with an excess both of 
love and of fear, f The mystery of a Person, indeed, is ever divine, to 
him that has a sense for the Godlike./ Often, notwithstanding, was I 
blamed, and by half-strangers hated, for my so-called Hardness (Hdrte), 
my Indifferentism towards men ; and the seemingly ironic tone I had 
adopted, as my favorite dialect in conversation. Alas, the panoply of 
Sarcasm was but as a buckram case, wherein I have striven to envelope 
myself; that so my own poor Person might live safe there; and in all 
friendliness, being no longer exasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I now 
see to be, in general, the language of the Devil ; for which reason I 
have, long since, as good as renounced it. But how many individuals 
(lid I, in those days, provoke into some degree of hostility thereby ! An 
ironic man, with his sly stillness, and ambuscading ways, more especially 
an ironic young man, from whom it is least expected, may be viewed as 
a pest to society. Have we not seen persons of weight and name, com- 
ing forward, with gentlest indifference, to tread such an one out of sight, 
as an insignificancy and worm, start ceiling-high (balkenkoch), and 
thence fall shattered and supine, to be borne home on shutters, not with- 
out indignation, when he proved electric and a torpedo ! " 

Alas, how can a man with this devilislmess of temper make way for him- 
self in Life ; where the first problem, as Teufelsdrockh too admits, is " to 
unite yourself with some one, and with somewhat (sicli anzuschlies- 
^en) 1 " Division, not union, is written on most part of his procedure. 
Let us add to that, in no great length of time, the only important connec- 
tion he had ever succeeded. in forming, his connection with the Ziihdarm 
Family, seems to have been paralysed, for all practical uses, by the 
death of the " not uncholeric" old Count. This fact stands recorded, 



60 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

quite incidentally, in a certain Discourse on Epitaphs, huddled into the 
present Bag, among so much else ; of which Essay the learning and 
curious penetration are more to be approved of than the spirit. His 
grand principle is, that lapidary inscriptions, of what sort soever, should 
be Historical rather than Lyrical. " By request of that worthy Noble- 
man's survivors," says he, " I undertook to compose his Epitaph ; and 
not unmindful of my own rules, produced the following; which, how- 
ever, for an alleged defect of Latinity, a defect never yet fully visible to 
myself, still remains unengraven ;" — wherein we may predict, there is 
more than the Latinity that will surprise an English reader : 

HIC JACET 

PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMUVTE MAGNUS, 

Zaehdarmi Comes, 

ex imperii concilio, 

velleris aurei, periscelidis, necnon vulturis nigri eq.ues. 

am BUM SUB LUNA AGEBAT, 

aUINaUIES MILLE PERDRICES 

PLUMBO CONFECIT : 

VARII CIBI 

CENTUMPONDIA MILLIES CENTENA MILLIA, 

PER SB, PERQUE SeRVOS QUADRUPEDES BIPEDESVE, 

HAUD SINE TUMULTU DEVOLVENS, 

IN STERCUS 

PALAM CONVERTIT. 

NUNC A LABORE REaUIESCENTEM 

OPERA SEaUUNTUR, 

SI MONUMBNTUM QUiERIS 

FIMETUM ADSPICE, 

PRIMUM IN ORBE DEJECIT [Stt6 datoi] ', POSTREMUM {^Sllb datO], 



••v.^ 



CHAPTER V, 



ROMANCE. 



" For long years," writes Teufelsdrockh, " had the poor Hebrew, m 
this Egypt of an Auscultatorship, painfully toiled, baking bricks without 
stubblej before ever the question once struck him with entire force : For 
what? — Beym Himmcl ! For Food and Warmth ! And are Food and 
Warmth nowhere else, in the whole wide Universe, discoverable? — 
Come of it what might, I resolved to try." 

Thus then are we to see him in a new independent capacity, though 
perhaps far from an improved one. Teufelsdrockh is now a man with- 
out Profession. Quitting the common Fleet of herring-busses and whal- 
ers, where indeed his leeward, laggard condition was painful enough, 
he desperately steers off, on a course of his own, by sextant and compass 



ROMANCE. 61 

of his own. Unhappy Teufelsdrcickh i Though neiHier Fled, nor 
Traffic, nor Commodores pleased Ihee, still was il not a Fleet, sailing in 
prescribed track, for fixed objects; above all, in combinatioi}, wherein, 
by mutual guidance, by all manner of loans and borrowings, each could 
manifoldly aid the other'? How wilt thou sail in unknown seas ; and 
for thyself find that shorter, Northwest Passage to thy fair Spice-country 
of a Nowhere'? — A solitary rover, on such a voyage, with such nautical 
tactics, will meet with adventures. Nay, as we forthwith discover, a 
certain Calypso- Island detains him at the very outset; and as it were 
falsifies and oversets his whole reckoning. 

"If in youth," writes he once, "the Universe is majestically unveil- 
ing, and everywhere Heaven revealing itself on Earth, nowhere to the 
Young Man does this Heaven on Earth so immediatel)'' reveal itself as 
in the Young Maiden. Strangely enough, in this strange life of ours, it 
has been so appointed. On the whole, as I have often said, a Person 
(PersonlichkeU) is ever holy to us ; a certain orthodox Anthropomor- 
phism connects my Me with all Thees in bonds of Love : but it is in this 
approximation of the Like and Unlike, that such heavenly attraction, as 
between Negative and Positive, first burns out into a flame. Is the piti- 
fullest mortal Person, think you, indifferent to us '? Is it not rather our 
heartfelt wish to be made one with him ; to unite him to us, by gratitude, 
by admiration, even by fear ; or failing all these, unite ourselves to him'? 
But how much more, in this case of the Like-Unlike ! Here is conced- 
ed us the higher mystic possibility of such a union, the highest in our 
Earth ; thus, in the conducting medium of Fantasy, flames forth that 
j^rc'-development of the universal Spiritual Electricity, which, as unfold- 
ed between man and woman, we first emphatically denominate Love. 

" In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there already 
blooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some fairest Eve; nor 
in the stately vistas, and flov/erage and foliage of that Garden is a Tree 
of Knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst thereof, wanting. Per- 
haps too the whole is but the lovelier if Cherubim and a Flaming Sword 
divide it from all footsteps of men ; and grant him, the imaginative strip- 
ling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season of virtuous youth, 
when shame is still an impassable celestial barrier ; and the sacred air- 
cities of Hope have not shrunk into the mean clay-hamlets of Reality : 
and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free ! 

" As for our young Forlorn," continues Teufelsdrockh, evidently 
meaning himself, "in his secluded way of life, and with his glowing 
Fantasy, the more fiery that it burnt under cover, as in a reverberating 
furnace, his feeling towards the Ciueens of this Earth was, and indeed 
is, altogether unspeakable. A visible Divinity dwelt in them ; to our 
young Friend all women were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw 
them flitting past, in their many-colored angel plumage ; or hovering 
mute and inaccessible on the outskirts of Esthetic Tea : all of air they 
were, all Soul and Form ; so lovely, like mysterious priestesses, in whose 
hand was the invisible Jacob's-1 adder, whereby man might mount into 
very Heaven. That he, our poor Friend, should ever win for himself 
one of these Gracefuls {Holden) — Ach Goit! how could he hope it ; should 
he not have died under it % There was a delirious vertigo in the thought. 

" Thus was the young man, if all sceptical of Demons and Angels 
such as the vulgar had once believed in, nevertheless not un visited by 
hosts of true Sky-born, who visibly and audibly hovered round him 
whereso he went ; and they had that religious worship in. his thought, 
though as yet it was by their mere earthly and trivial name that he nam- 
ed them. But now, if on a soul so circumstanced, some actual Air- 
maiden, incorporated into tangibility and reality, should cast any elec- 
tric glance of kind eyes, saying thereby, ' Thou too may est love and be 
6 



62 SARTOE. RESARTUS. 

loved ;' and so kindle him, — good Heaven, what a volcanic earthquake- 
bringing, all-consuming fire were probably kindled !' 

Such a fire, it afterwards appears, did actually burst forth, with ex- 
plosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner man of Hen Diogenes ; as 
indeed how could it fail 1 A nature, which, in his own figurative style, 
we might say, had now not a little carbonised tinder of Irritability ; with 
so much nitre of latent Passion, and sulphurous Humor enough ; the 
whole lying in such hot neighborhood, close by " a reverberating furnace 
of Fantasy :" have we not here the components of driest Gunpowder, 
ready, on occasion of the smallest spark, to blaze npl Neither, in this 
our Life-element, are sparks anywhere wanting. Without doubt, some 
Angel, whereof so many hovered round, must one day, leaving " the out- 
skirts of JEsthe tic Tea," flitnigher; and, by electic Promethean glance, 
kindle no despicable firework, Happy, if it indeed proved a Firework, 
and flamed off rocket-wise, in successive beautiful bursts of splendor, 
each growing naturally from the other, through the several stages of a 
happy Youthful Love ; till the whole were safely burnt out ; and the 
young soul relieved, with little damage ! Happy, if it did not rathg: 
prove a Conflagration and mad Explosion; painfully lacerating the 
heart itself; nay perhaps bursting the heart in pieces (which were 
Death) ; or at best, bursting the thin walls of your "reverberating fur- 
nace," so that it rage thenceforth all unchecked among the contiguous 
combustibles (which were Madness) : till of the so fair and' manifold 
internal world of our Diogenes, there remained Nothing, or' only the 
" crater of an extinct volcano !" 

From multifarious Documents in this Bag Capricornus, and in the 
adjacent ones on both sides thereof, it becomes manifest that our Philo- 
sopher, as stoical and cynical as he now looks, was heartily and even 
franticly in Love : here therefore may our old doubts whether his heart 
were of stone or of flesh, give way. He loved once ; not wisely but too 
well. And once only : for as your Congreve needs a new case or wrap- 
page for every new rocket, so each human heart can properly exhibit 
but one Love, if even one; the "First Love which is infinite" can be 
followed by no second like unto it. In more recent years, accordingly, 
the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard Tcufelsdrockh as a man not 
only who would never wed, but who would never even flirt ; whom the 
grand-climacteric itself, and St. Martinis Summer of incipient Dotage, 
would crown with no new myrtle garland. To the Professor, women 
are henceforth Pieces of Art ; of Celestial Art, indeed ; which celestial 

I pieces he glories to survey in galleries, but has lost thought of purchasing. 

/ Psychological readers are not without curiosity to see how Tcufels- 
drockh, in this for him unexampled predicament, demeans himself; 
with what specialities of successive configuration, splendor and color, 
his Firework blazes off". Small, as usual, is the satisfaction that such 
can meet with here. From amid these confused masses of Eulogy and 
Elegy, with their mad Petrarchan and Werterean ware lying madly 
scattered among all sorts of quite extraneous matter, not so much as the 
fair one's name can be deciphered. For, without doubt, the title Blii- 
mine, whereby she is here designated, and which means simply Groddess 
of Flowers, must be fictitious. Was her real name Flora, then 1 But 
what was her surname, or had she none ? Of what station in Life was 
she; of what parentage, fortune, aspect *? Specially, by what Pre-es- 
tablished Harmony of occurrences did the Lover and the Loved meet 
one another in so wide a world; how did they behave in such meeting 1 
To all which questions, not unessential in a Biographic work, mere 
Conjecture must for most part return answer. " It was appointed," says 
our Philosopher, " that the high celestial orbit of Blumine should inter- 
sect the low sublunary one of our Forlorn ; that he, looking in her em- 



ROMANCE. 63 

pyrean eyes, should fancy the upper Sphere of Light was come down 
into this nether sphere of Shadows ; and finding himself mistaken, make 
noise enough." 

We seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, beautiful, and 
some one's Cousin ; highborn, and of high spirit; but unhappily depend- 
ent and insolvent ; living, perhaps, on the not too gracious bounty of 
monied relatives. But how came " the Wanderer" into her circle 1 
Was it by the humid vehicle of JSsthetic Tea, or by the arid one of 
mere Business 1 Was it on the hand of Herr Towgood : or of the 
Gnadige Frau, who, as an ornamental Artist, might sometimes like to 
promote flirtation, especially for young cynical Nondescripts 1 To all 
appearance it was chiefly by Accident, and the grace of Nature. 

" Thou fair Waldschloss, writes our Autobiographer, what stranger 
ever saw thee, were it even an absolved Auscultator, officially bearing 
in his pocket the last Relatio ex Actis he would ever write ; but mu^t 
have paused to Wonder ! Noble Mansion ! There stood est thou, in 
deep Mountain Amphitheatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene soli- 
tude ; stately, massive, all of granite ; glittering in the western sunbeams, 
like a palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious metal. Beautiful 
rose tip, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills : of the 
greenest was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, or 
spotted by some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. To the un- 
conscious Wayfarer thou wert also as an Ammon's Temple in the 
Libyan Waste ; where, for joy and woe, the tablet of his Destiny lay 
written. Well might he pause and gaze ; in that glance of his were 
prophecy and nameless forebodings." 

But now let us conjecture that the so presentieni Auscultator has handed 
in his Relatio ex Actis ; been invited to a glass of Rhine-wine ; and so, 
instead of returning dispirited and athirst to his dusty Town-home, is 
ushered into his Gardenhouse, where sit the choicest party of dames and 
cavaliers ; if not engaged in Esthetic Tea, yet in trustful evening con- 
versation, and perhaps Musical Coffee, for we hear of "harps and pure 
voices making the stillness live." Scarcely, it would seem, is the Gar- 
denhouse inferior in respectability to the noble Mansion itself "Em- 
bowered amid rich foliage, rose clusters, and the hues and odors of 
thousand flowers, here sat that brave company ; in front, from the wide- 
opened doors, fair outlook over blossom and bush, over grove and velvet 
green, stretching, undulating onwards to the remote Mountain peaks : so 
bright, so mild, and everywhere the melody of birds and happy crea- 
tures : it was all as if man had stolen a shelter from the Sun in the bo- 
som-vesture of Summer herself. How came it that the Wanderer 
advanced thither with such forecasting heart {ahnungsvolV), by the side 
of his gay host 1 Did he feel that to these soft influences his hard bo- 
som ought to be shut ; that here, once more, Fate had it in view to try 
him ; to mock him, and see whether there were Humor in him 1 

" Next moment he finds himself presented to the party ; and specially 
by name to — Blumine ! Peculiar among all dames and damosels, 
glanced Blumine, there in her modesty, like a star in earthly lights. 
Noblest maiden ! whom he bent to, in body and soul ; yet scarcely dared 
look at, the presence filling him with painful yet sweetest embarrassment. 

" Blumine's was a name well known to him ; far and wide was the 
fa,ir one heard of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices : from all which 
vague colorings of Rumor, from the censures no less than from the 
praises, had our Friend painted for himself a certain imperious Glueen 
of Hearts, and blooming warm Earth-angel, much more enchanting than 
joxxv mere white Heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins cir- 
culates too little naptha-fire. Herself also he had seen in public places ; 
that light yet so stately form ; those dark tresses, shading a face where 



64 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

smiles and sunlight played over earnest deeps : but all this he had seen 
only as a magic vision, for him inaccessible, almost without reality. 
Her sphere was too far from his; how should she ever think of him ; O 
Heaven! how should they so much as meet together'? And now that 
Rose-goddess sits in the same circle with him ; the light of her eyes has 
smiled on him, if he speak she will hear it ! Nay, who knows, since 
the heavenly Sun looks into lowest valleys, but Blumine herself might 
have aforetime noted the so unnotable ; perhaps, from his very gainsay- 
ers, as he had from hers, gathered wonder, gathered favor for him "? 
Was the attraction, the agitation mutual, then ; pole and pole trembling 
towards contact, when once brought into neighborhood 1 Say rather, 
heart swelling in presence of the (Sueen of Hearts; like the Sea swell- 
ing when once near its Moon ! With the Wanderer it was e^en so : as 
in heavenward gravitation, suddenly as at the touch of a Seraph's wand, 
his whole soul is roused from its deepest recesses ; and all that was pain- 
ful, and that was blissful there, dim images, vague feelings of a whole 
Past and a whole Future, are heaving in unquiet eddies within him. 

" Often, in far less agitating scenes, had our still Friend shrunk forci- 
bly together; and shrouded up his tremors and flutterings, of what sort 
soever, in a safe cover of Silence, and perhaps of seeming Stolidity. 
How was it, then, that here, when trembling to the core of his heart, he did 
not sink into swoons, but rose into strength, into fearlessness and clear- 
ness 1 It was his guiding Genius {Damon) that inspired him ; he must 
go forth and meet his Destin5^ Show thyself now, whispered it, or be 
for ever hid. Thus sometimes it is even when your anxiety becomes 
transcendental, that the soul first feels herself able to transcend it ; that she 
rises above it, in fiery victory ; and, borne on new-found wings of vic- 
tory, moves so calmly, even because so rapidly, so irresistibly. Always 
must the Wanderer remember, with a certain satisfaction and surprise, 
how in this case he sat not silent, but struck adroitly into the stream of 
conversation ; which thenceforth, to speak with an apparent not a real 
vanity, he may say that he continued to lead. Surely, in those hours, a 
certain inspiration was imparted him, such inspiration as is still possible 
in our late era. The self-secluded unfolds himself in noble thoughts, in 
free, glowing words ; his soul is as one sea of light, the peculiar home 
of Truth and Intellect ; wherein also Fantasy bodies forth form, after 
form, radiant with all prismatic hues." 

It appears, in this otherwise so happy meeting, there talked one 
" Philistine;" who 'even now, to the general weariness, was dominantly 
pouring forth Philistinism {PJiilistriositdten) ; little witting what hero 
wa^k^here entering to demolish him ! We omit the series of Socratic, or 
rather Biogenic utterances, not unhappy in their way, whereby the mon- 
ster, " persuaded into silence," seems soon after to have withdrawn for 
the night. " Of which dialectic marauder," writes our hero, "the dis- 
comfiture was visibly felt as a benefit by most : but what were all ap- 
plauses to the glad smile, threatening every moment to become a laugh, 
wherewith Blumine herself repaid the victor 1 He ventured to address 
her, she answered with attention : nay, "what if there were a slight tremor 
in that silver voice ; what if the red glow of evening were hiding a 
transient blush ! 

" The conversation took a higher tone, one fine thought called forth 
another \ \it was one of those rare seasons, when the soul expands with 
full freedom, and man feels himself brought near to man. , Gaily in 
light, graceful abandonment, the friendly talk played round that circle : 
for the burden was rolled from every heart; the barriers of Ceremony, 
which are indeed the laws of polite living, had melted as into vapor; 
and the poor claims of 3Ic and Thee, no longer parted by rigid fences, 
now flowed softly into one another; and Life lay all harmonious, many- 



ROMANCE. 65 

tinted, like some fair royal champaign, the sovereign and owner of 
which were Love only. Such music springs from kind hearts, in a 
kind environment of place and time. And yet as the light grew more 
aerial on the mountain tops, and the shadows fell longer over the val- 
ley, some faint tone of sadness may have breathed through the heart ; 
and, in whispers more or less audible, reminded every one that as this 
bright day was drawing towards its close, so likewise must the Day of 
man's Existence decline into dust and darkness ; and with all its sick 
toilings, and joyful and mournful noises, sink in the still Eternity. 

" To our Friend the hours seemed moments ; holy was he and happy : 
the words from those sweetest lips came over him like dew on thirsty 
grass ; all better feelings in his soul seemed to whisper : It is good for 
us to be here. At parting, the Blumine's hand was in his : in the balmy 
twilight, with the kind stars above them, he spoke something of meeting 
again, which was not contradicted; he pressed gently those small soft 
fingers, and it seemed as if they were not hastily, not angrily withdrawn." 

Poor Teufelsdrockh ! it is clear to demonstration thou art smit : the 
Clueen of Hearts would see " a man of genius" also sigh for her; and 
there, by art magic, in that preternatural hour, has she bound and spell- 
bound thee. " Love is not altogether a Delirium," says he elsewhere; 
" yet has it many points in common therewith. I call it rather a dis- 
cerning of the Infinite in the Finite, of the Ideal made Real ; which dis- 
cerning again may be either true or false, either seraphic or demoniac, 
Inspiration or Insanity. But in the former case, too, as in common mad- 
ness, it is Fantasy that superadds itself to Sight ; on the so petty domain 
of the Actual, plants its Archimedes'-lever, whereby to move at will the 
infinite Spiritual, Fantasy I might call the true Heaven-gate and Hell- 
gate of man: his sensuous life is but the small temporary stage (Zeit- 
buhTie), whereon thick-streaming influences from both these far yet near 
regions meet visibly, and act tragedy and melodrama. Sense can sup- 
port herself handsomely, in most countries, for some eighteenpence 
a-day ; but for Fantasy planets and solar-systems will not suffice. Wit- 
ness your Pyrrhus conquering the world, yet drinking no better red wine 
than he had before." Alas, witness also your Diogenes, flame-clad, 
scaling the upper Heaven, and verging on Insanity, for prize of a " high- 
souled Brunette," as if the Earth held but one, and not several of these ! 

He says that, in Town, they met again : " day after day, like his 
heart's sun, the blooming Blumine shone on him. Ah ! a little while 
ago, and he was yet all in darkness : him what Graceful (Holde) would 
ever love 1 Disbelieving all things, the poor youth had never learned 
to believe in himself. Withdrawn, in proud timidity, within his own 
fastnesses ; solitary from men, yet baited by night-spectres enough, he 
saw himself, with a sad indignation, constrained to renounce the fairest 
hopes of existence. And now, O now ! ' She looks on thee,' cried 
he : ' she the fairest, noblest ; do not her dark eyes tell thee, thou art not 
despised '? The Heaven's- Messenger ! All Heaven's blessings be hers !' 
Thus did soft melodies flow through his heart ; tones of an infinite gra- 
titude ; sweetest intimations that he also was a man, that for him also 
unutterable joys had been provided. 

" In free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent glances, laughter, tears, 
and often with the inarticulate mystic speech of Music : such was the 
element they now lived in ; in such a many-tinted, radiant Aurora, and 
by this fairest of Orient Light-bringers must our Friend be blandished, 
and the new Apocalypse of Nature unrolled to him. Fairest Blumine ! 
And, even as a Star, all Fire and humid Softness, a very Light-ray in- 
carnate ! Was there so much as a fault, a ' caprice,' he could have dis- 
pensed with 1 Was she not to him in very deed a Morning-Star ; did 
not her presence bring with it airs from Heaven '? As from Eolean 
6* 



QQ SARTOR RES ARTUS. 

Harps in the breath of clawn,'as from the Memnon's Statue struck by the 
rosy finger of Aurora, unearthly music was around him, and lapped him 
into untried balmy Rest. Pale Doubt fled away to the distance ;' Life 
bloomed up with happiness and hope. The Past, then, was all a hag- 
gard dream ; he had been in the Garden of Eden, then, and could not 
discern it ! But lo now ! the black walls of his prison melt away ; the 
captive is alive, is free. If he loved his Disenchantress '? Ach Goit! 
His whole heart and soul and life were hers, but never had he named 
it Love : existence was all a Feeling, not yet shaped into a Thought." 

Nevertheless, into a Thought, nay into an Action, it must be shaped ; 
for neither Disenchanter nor Disenchantress, mere " Children of Time," 
can abide by Feeling alone. The Professor knows not, to this day, 
" how in her soft, fervid bosom, the Lovely found determination, even 
on best of Necessity, to cut asunder these so blissful bonds." He even 
appears surprised at the " Duenna Cousin," whoever she may have been, 
" in whose meagre, hunger-bitten philosophy, the religion of young 
hearts was, from the first, faintly approved of." We, even at such dis- 
tance, can explain it without necromancy. Let the Philosopher answer 
this one question: What figure, at that period, was a Mrs. Teufels- 
drockh likely to make in polished society '? Could she have driven so 
much as a brass-bound Gig, or even a simple iron-spring one'? Thou 
foolish " absolved Auscultator," before whom lies no prospect of capital, 
will any yet known "religion of young hearts" keep the human Kitchen 
warm'? Pshaw! thy divine Blumine, when she "resigned herself to 
wed some richer," shows more philosophy, though but " a woman of ge- 
nius," than thou, a pretended m.an. 

Our readers have witnessed the origin of this Love-mania, and with 
what royal splendor it waxes, and rises. Let no one ask us to unfold the 
glories of its dominant state ; much less the horrors of its almost instantane- 
ous dissolution. How from such inorganic masses, henceforth madder 
than ever, as lie in these Bags, can even fragments of a living delinea- 
tion be organized'? Besides, of what profit were it? We view, with a 
lively pleasure, the gay silk Montgolfier start from the ground, and shoot 
upwards, cleaving the liquid deeps, till it dwindle to a luminous star : 
but what is there to look longer on, when once, by natural elasticity, or 
accident of fire, it has exploded'? A hapless air-navigator, plunging, 
amid torn parachutes, sand-bags, and confused wreck, fast enough, into 
the jaws of the Devil ! Suffice it to know that Teufelsdrockh rose into 
the highest regions of the Empyrean, by a natural parabolic track, and 
returned thence in a quick perpendicular one. For the rest, let any 
feeling reader, who has been unhappy enough to do the like, paint it 
out for himself; considering only that if he, for his perhaps compara- 
tively insignificant mistress, underwent such agonies and frenzies, what 
must Teufelsdrockh's have been, with a fire-heart, and for a nonpareil 
Blumine! We glance merely at the final scene : 

" One morning, he found his Morning-star all dimmed and dusky-red ; 
the fair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to have been weeping. 
Alas, no longer a Morning- star, but a troublous skyey Portent, announc- 
ing that the Doomsday had dawned ! She said, in a tremulous voice, 
they were to meet no more." The thunderstruck Air-sailor is not 
wanting to himself in this dread hour : but what avails it 1 We omit 
the passionate expostulations, entreaties, indignations, since all was vain, 
and not even an explanation was conceded him ; and hasten to the catas- 
trophe. " Farewell, then. Madam! said he, not without sternness, for 
his stung pride helped him. She put her hand in his, she looked in his 
face, tears started to her eyes : in wild audacity he clasped her to his 
bosom ; their lips were joined, their two souls, like two dew-drops, rushed 
into one,— for the first time, and for the last!" Thus ^vas Teufels- 



SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 67 

drockh made immraortal by a kiss. And then '? Why, then — '' thick 
curtains of Night r ashed over his sou], as rose the immeasurable Crash 
of Doom ; and through the ruins of a shivered Universe, was he falling, 
falling, towards the Abyss." 



CHAPTER VI. 

SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 

We have long felt that, with a man like our Professor, matters must 
often be expected to take a course of their own ; that, in so multiplex, 
intricate a nature, there might be channels, both for admitting and emit- 
ting such as the Psychologist had seldom noted ; in short, that on no 
grand occasion and convulsion, neither in the joy-storm nor in the woe- 
storm, could you predict his demeanor. 

To our Jess philosophical readers, for example, it is now clear that 
the so passionate Teufelsdrockh, precipitated through "a shivered Uni- 
verse" in this extraordinary way, has only one of three things which he 
can next do : Establish himself in Bedlam : begin writing Satanic Poetry ; 
or blow out his brains. In the progress towards any of Avhich consum- 
mations, do not such readers anticipate extravagance enough : breast- 
beating, brow-beating (against walls), lion-bellowings of blasphemy and 
the like, stampmgs, smitings, breakages of furniture, if not arson itself? 

Nowise so does Teufelsdrockh depo.rl him. He quietly lifts his Pil- 
gerstab (Pilgrim-staff), " old business being soon woundup ;" and begins 
a perambulation and circumambulation of the terraqueous Globe ! Cu- 
rious it is, indeed, how with such vivacity of conception, such intensity 
of feeling ; above all, with these unconscionable habits of Exaggeration 
in speech, he combines that wonderful stillness of his, that stoicism in 
external procedure. Thus if his sudden bereavement, in this matter of 
the Flower-goddess, is talked of as a real Doomsday and Dissolution of 
Nature, in which light doubtless it partly appeared to himself, his own 
nature is nowise dissolved thereby; but rather is compressed closer. 
For once, as we might say, a Blumine by magic appliances has unlock- 
ed that shut heart of his, and its hidden things rush out tumultuous, 
boundless, like genii enfranchised from their glass phial : but no sooner 
are your magic appliances withdrawn, than the strange casket of a 
heart springs-to again ; and perhaps there is nov/ no key extant that will 
open it; for a Teufelsdrockh, as we remarked, will not love a second 
time. Singular Diogenes ! No sooner has that heart-rending occur- 
rence taken place, than he affects to regard it as a thing natural, of 
which there is nothing more to be said. " One highest Hope, seemingly 
legible in the eyes of an Angel, had recalled him as out of Death-sha- 
dows into celestial Life : but a gleam of Tophet passed over the face of 
his Angel ; he was rapt away in whirlwinds, and heard the laughter of 
Demons. It was a Calenture," adds he, " v/hereby the Youth saw green 
Paradise-groves in the waste Ocean-waters : a lying vision, yet not whol- 
ly a lie, for he saw it," But what things soever passed in him, when he 
ceased to see it ; what ragings and despairings soever Teufelsdrockh's 
soul was the scene of, he has the goodness to conceal under a quite 
opaque cover of Silence. We know it well ; the first mad paroxysm 
past, our brave Gneschen collected his dismembered philosophies, and 
buttoned himself together ; he was meek, silent, or spoke of the weather, 
and the Journals : only by a transient knitting of those shaggy brows by 
some deep flash of those eyes, glancing one knew not whether with tear- ; 
dew or with fierce fire, — might you have guessed what a Gehenna was 
within: that a whole Satanic School were spouting, though inaudibly, 



68 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

there. To consume your own choler, as some chimneys consume their 
own smoke ; to keep a whole Satanic School spouting, if it must spout, 
inaudibly, is a negative yet no slight virtue, nor one of the commonest 
in these times. 

Nevertheless, we will not take upon us to say, that in the strange mea- 
sure he fell upon, there was not a touch of latent Insanity ; whereof in- 
deed the actual condition of these Documents in Capricornus and Aqua- 
rius is no bad emblem. His so unlimited Wanderings, toilsome enough, 
are without assigned or perhaps assignable aim ; internal Unrest seems 
his sole guidance ; he wanders, wanders, as if that curse of the Prophet 
had fallen on him, and he were "made like unto a wheel." Doubtless, 
too, the chaotic nature of these Paperbags aggravates our obscm-ity. 
Cluite without note of preparation, for example, we come upon the fol- 
lowing slip : " A peculiar feeling is it that will rise in the Traveller, 
when turning some hill- range in his desert road, he descries lying far 
below, embosomed among its groves and green natural bulwarks, and 
all diminished to a toybox, the fair Town, where so many souls, as it 
were seen and yet unseen, are driving their multifarious traffic. Its 
white steeple is then truly a starward-pointing fmger; the canopy of 
blue smoke seems like a sort of Life-breath : for always, of its own unity, 
the soul gives unity to whatso it looks on with love ; thus does the little 
Dwellingplace of men, in itself a congeries of houses and huts, become 
for us an individual, almost a person. But what thousand other thoughts 
unite thereto, if the place has to ourselves been the arena of joyous or 
mournful experiences ; if perhaps the cradle we were rocked in still 
stands there, if our Loving ones still dwell there, if our buried ones there 
slumber !" Does Teufelsdrockh, as the wounded eagle is said to make 
for its own eyrie, and indeed military deserters, and all hunted outcast crea- 
tures, turn as if by instinct in the direction of their birthland, — fly first, 
in this extremity, towards his native Entepfuhl ; but reflecting that there 
no help awaits him, take but one wistful look from the distance, and 
then wend elsewhither 1 

Little happier seems to be his next flight : into the wilds of Nature ; 
as if in her mother-bosom he would seek healing. So at least we in- 
cline to interpret the following Notice, separated from the former by 
some considerable space, wherein, however, is nothing note-worthy : 

" Mountains were not new to him ; but rarely are Mountains seen in 
such combined majesty and grace as here. The rocks are of that sort 
called Primitive by the mineralogists, which always arrange themselves 
in masses of a rugged, gigantic character ; which ruggedness, however, 
is here tempered by a singular airiness of form, and softness of environ- 
ment : in a climate favorable to vegetation, the gray cliff", itself covered 
with lichens, shoots up through a garment of foliage or verdure ; and 
v/hite, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster round the everlasting granite. 

In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates with Grandeur : you ride through 
stony hollows, along strait passes, traversed by torrents, overhung by 
high walls of rock ; now winding amid broken shaggy chasms, and huge 
fragments; now suddenly emerging into some emerald valley, where the 
streamlet collects itself into a Lake, and man has again found a dwelling, 
and it seems as if Peace had established herself in the bosom of Strength, 

" To Peace, however, in this vortex of existence, can the Son of Time 
not pretend : still less if some Spectre haunt him from the Past ; and the 
Future is wholly a Stygian Darkness, spectre-bearing. Reasonably 
might the Wanderer exclaim to himself: Are not the gates of this 
world's Happiness inexorably shut against thee ; hast thou a hope that 
is not mad'? Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, or in the ori- 
ginal Greek if that suit better : ' Whoso can look on Death will start at 
no shadows V 



SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 69 

" From such meditations is the Wanderer's attention called outwards ; 
for now the Valley closes in abruptly, intersected by a huge mountain 
mass, the stony waterworn ascent of which is not to be accomplished on 
horseback. Arrived aloft, he finds himself again lifted into the evening 
simset light ; and cannot but pause, and gaze romid him, some moments 
there. An upland irregular expanse of wold, where valleys in complex 
branchings are suddenly or slowly arranging their descent towards every 
quarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are beneath, your feet, and 
folded together : only the loftier summits look down here and there as 
on a second plain j lakes also lie clear and earnest in their solitude. No 
trace of man nov/ visible ; unless indeed it were he who fashioned that 
little visible link of Highway, here, as would seem, scaling the inacces- 
sible, to unite Province with Province. But sunwards, lo you ! how it 
towers sheer up, a world of Mountains, the diadem and centre of the 
mountain region ! A hundred and a hundred savage peaks, in the last 
light of Day; all glowing, Of gold and amethyst, like giant spirits of the 
wilderness ; there in their silence, in their solitude, even as on the night 
v/hen Noah's Deluge first dried ! Beautiful, nay solemn, was the sud- 
den aspect to our Wanderer, He gazed over those stupendous masses 
with wonder, almost with longing desire ; never till this hour had he 
known Nature, that she was One, that she was his Mother and divine. 
And as the ruddy glow was fading into clearness in the sky, and the 
Sun had nov/ departed, a murmur of Eternity and Immensity, of Death 
and of Life, stole through his soul ; and he felt as if Death and Life were 
one, as if the Earth were not dead, as if the Spirit of the Earth had its throne 
in that splendor, and his own spirit were therewith holding communion. 

" The spell was broken by a sound of carriage-wheels. Emerging 
from the hidden Northward, to sink soon into the hidden Southward, 
came a gay barouche-and-four : it was open ; servants and postilions wore 
wedding-favors : that happy pair, then, had found each other, it was 
their marriage evening ! Few moments brought them near: Du Himmel! 

It was Herr Towgood and Blumine ! With slight unrecognizing 

salutation they passed me ; plunged down amid the neighboring thick- 
ets, onwards, to Heaven, and to England ; and I, in my friend Richter's 
words, I remained alone, behind them, with the Night." 

Were it not cruel in these circumstances, here might be the place to 
insert an observation, gleaned long ago from the great Clothes- Volume, 
where it stands with quite other intent: " Some time before Small-pox 
was extirpated," says the Professor, " there came a new malady of the 
spiritual sort on Europe : I mean the epidemic, now endemical, of View- 
hunting. Poets of old date, being privileged with Senses, had also en- 
joyed external Nature ; but chiefly as we enjoy the crystal cup which 
holds good or bad liquor for us ; that is to say, in silence, or with slight 
incidental commentary : never, as I compute, till after the Sorrows of 
Werter, was there man found who would say : Come let us make a De- 
scription ! Having drunk the liquor, come let us eat the glass ! Of 
which endemic the Jenner is unhappily still to seek." Too true ! 

We reckon it more important to remark that the Professor's Wander- 
ings, so far as his stoical and cynical envelopement admits us to clear 
insight, here first take their permanent character, fatuous or not. That 
basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have withered up 
what little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in him : Life has 
become wholly a dark labyrinth ; wherein, through long years, our 
Friend, flying from spectres, must stumble about at random, and natu- 
rally with more haste than progress. 

Foolish were it in us to attempt following him, even from afar, in this 
extraordinary world-pilgrimage of his; the simplest record of which, 
were clear record possible, would fill volumes Hopeless is the obscuri- 



70 SARTOR RESARTTTS. 

ty, unspeakable the confusion. He glides from country to country, from 
condition to condition ; vanishing and reappearing, no man can' calcu- 
late how or where. Through all quarters of the world he wanders, and 
apparently through all circles of society. If in any scene, perhaps diffi- 
cult to fix geographically, he settles for a time, and forms connexions, 
be sure he will snap them abruptly asunder. Let him sink out of sight 
as Private Scholar {Privatisirendef)^ living by the grace of God, in 
some European capital, you may next find him as Hadjee in the neigh- 
borhood of Mecca. It is an inexplicable Phantasmagoria, capricious, 
quick-changing ; as if our Traveller, instead of limbs and highways, 
had transported himself by some wishing-carpet, or Fortunatus' Hal. 
The whole too imparted emblematically, in dim multifarious tokens (as 
that collection of Street- Advertisements) ; with only some touch of di- 
rect historical notice sparingly interspersed: little light-islets in the 
world of haze ! So that, from this point, the Professor is more of an 
enigma than ever. In figurative language, we might say he becomes, 
not indeed a spirit, yet spiritualised, vaporised. Fact unparalleled in 
Biography : The river of his History, which we have traced from its 
tiniest fountains, and hoped to see flow onward, with increasing current, 
into the ocean, here dashes itself over that terrific Lover's Leap; and, 
as a mad-foaming cataract, flies wholly into tumultuous clouds of spray ! 
Low down it indeeds collects again into pools and plashes ; yet only at 
a great distance, and with difliculty, if at all, into a general stream. To 
cast a glance into certain of those pools and plashes, and trace whither 
they run, must, for a chapter or two, form the limit of onr endeavor. 

For which end doubtless those direct historical Notices, where they 
can be met with, are the best. Nevertheless, of this sort too there occurs 
much, which, with our present light, it were questionable to emit. Teuf- 
elsdrockh, vibrating everywhere between the highest and the lowest 
levels, comes into contact with public History itself. For example, 
those conversations and relations with illustrious Persons, as Sultan 
Mahmoud, the Emperor Napoleon, and others, are they not as yet rather 
of a diplomatic character than of a biographic % The Editor, appreciat- 
ing the sacredness of crowned, heads, nay perhaps suspecting the possi- 
ble trickeries of a Clothes-Philosopher, will eschew this province for the 
present: a new time may bring new insight and a different duty. 

If we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior Purpose, for there 
was none, yet with what immediate outlooks; at all events, in 
what mood of mind, the Professor undertook and prosecuted this 
world-pilgrimage,— the answer is more distinct than favorable. " A 
nameless Unrest," says he, "urged me forward; to which the outward 
motion was some momentar)'' lying solace. Whither should T gol My 
Loadstars were blotted out ; in that canopy of grim fire shone no star. 
Yet forward must I ; the ground burnt under me ; there was no rest for 
the sole of my foot. I was alone, alone ! Ever too the strong inward 
longing shaped Fantasms for itself: towards these, one after the other, 
must I fruitlessly wander. A leeling I had that, for my fever-thirst, 
there was and must be somewhere a healing Fountain. To many fondly 
imagined Fountains, the Saints' Wells of these days, did I pilgrim ; to 
great Men, to great Cities, to great Events : but found there no healing. 
In strange countries, as in the well-known ; in savage deserts as in the 
press of corrupt civilisation, it was ever the same : how could your 
Wanderer escape from — his own Shadow ? Nevertheless still Forward ? 
I felt as if in great haste; to do I saw not what. From the depths of 
my own heart, it called to me, Forwards ! The winds and the streams, 
and all Nature sounded to me. Forwards! Ach Gott, I was even, once 
for all, a Son of Time." 

From which is it not c]<?.ar that the internal Satanic School was still 



THE EVERLASTING NO. 71 

active enough'? He says elsewhere : " The E^ichiridion of EpicLetus I 
had ever with me, often as my sole rational companion ; and regret to 
mention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling." Thou foolish 
Teufelsdrockh! How could it CISC'? Hadst thou not Greek enough to 
understand thus much : The end of Man is an Action, and not a Thought, 
though it were the noblest *? 

" How I lived V writes he once : " Friend, hast thou considered the 
'rugged all-nourishing Earth,' as Sophocles well names her; how she 
feeds the sparrow on the housetop, much more her darling man 1 While 
thou stirrest and livest, thou hast a probability of victual. My breakfast 
of tea has been cooked by a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, 
who wiped her earthen-kettle with a horsetail. I have roasted wild eggs 
in the sand of Sahara ; I have awakened in Paris Estrapades and Vienna 
Malzleins, with no prospect of breakfast beyond elemental liquid. That 
I had my Living to seek saved me from Dying, — by suicide. In our 
busy Europe, is there not an everlasting demand for Intellect, in the che- 
mical, mechanical, political, religious, educational, commercial depart- 
ments 1 In Pagan countries, cannot one write Fetishes '? Living ! Lit- 
tle knowest thou what alchemy is in an inventive Soul ; how, as with 
its little finger, it can create provision enough for the body (of a Philo- 
sopher) ; and then, as with both hands, create quite other than provi- 
sion ; namely, spectres to torment itself withal," 

Poor Teufelsdrockh ! Flying with Hunger always parallel to him ; 
and a whole Infernal Chace in his rear ; so that the countenance of 
Hunger is comparatively a friend's ! Thus must he, in the temper of 
ancient Cain, or of the modern Wandering Jew, save only that he feels 
himself not guilty and but suffering the pains of guilt, — wend to and fro 
with aimless speed. Thus must he, over the whole surface of the Earth 
(by foot-prints), write his Sorroios of Teufelsdrockh ; even as the great 
Goethe, in passionate words, must write his Sorroios of Werter, before 
the spirit freed herself, and he could become a Man. Vain truly is the 
hope of your swiftest Runner " to escape from his own Shadow !" Ne- 
vertheless, in these sick days, when the Born of Heaven first descries 
himself (about the age of twenty) in a world such as ours, richer than 
usual in two things : in Truths grown obsolete, and Trades grown obso- 
lete, — what can the fool think but that it is all a Den of Lies, wherein 
whoso will not speak Lies and act Lies, must stand Idle, and despair '? 
Whereby it happens that, for your nobler minds, the publishing of some 
such Work of Art, in one or the other dialect, becomes almost a neces- 
sity. For what is it properly but an Altercation with the Devil, before 
you begin honestly Fighting him '? Your Byron publishes his Sorrows 
of Lord George, in verse and in prose, and copiously otherwise : your 
Bonaparte represents his Sorrows of Napoleon Opera, in an ail-too stu- 
pendous style ; Avith music of cannon -volleys, and murder-shrieks of a 
world ; his stage-lights are the fires of Conflagration ; his rhyme and 
recitative are the tramp of embattled Hosts and the sound of falling 
Cities. — Happier is he who, like our Clothes-Philosopher, can write such 
matter, since it must be written, on the insensible Earth, wath his shoe- 
soles only; and also survive the writing thereof! 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE EVERLASTING NO. 



Under the strange nebulous envelopment, wherein our Professor has 
now shrouded himself, no doubt but his spiritual nature is nevertheless 
progressive, and growing : for how can the "Son of Time," in any case, 



72 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

Stand still 1 We behold him, through those dim years, m a siaLe ol' cri- 
sis, of transition: his mad Pilgrimages, and general solution into aim- 
less Discontinuity, what is all this but a mad Fermentation ; wlierefrom, 
the fiercer it is, the clearer product will one 'day evolve itself 7 

Such transitions are ever full of pain : thus the Eagle, when he moults, 
is sickly; and, to attain his new beak, must harshly dash oii'the old one 
upon rocks. What Stoicism soever our Wanderer, in his individual 
acts and motions, may aflect, it is clear that there is a hot fever of anar- 
chy and misery raging within ; coruscations of which flash out : as, in- 
deed, how could there be other '? Have we not seen him disappointed, 
bemocked of Destiny, through long years '? All that the young heart 
might desire and pray for has been denied ; nay, as in the last worst in- 
stance, offered and then snatched away. Ever an " excellent Passivity ;" 
but of useful, reasonable Activity, essential to the former as Food to 
Hunger, nothing granted: till at length, in this wild Pilgrimage, be 
must forcibly seize for himslf an Activity, though useless, unreasonable, 
Alas ! his cup of bitterness, which had been filling drop by drop, ever 
since that first " ruddy morning" in the Hinterschlag Gymnasium, was 
at the very lip ; and then with that poison-drop, of the Towgood-and- 
Blumine busmess, it runs over, and even hisses over in a deluge of foam. 

He himself says once, with more justness than originality: ^'Man is, 
properly speaking, based upon Hope, he has no other possession but 
Hope ; this world of his is emphaiically the Place of Hope." What 
then was our Professor's possession'? We see him, for the present, 
shut out from Hope ; looking not into the golden orient, but all around 
into a dim copper firmament, pregnant with earthquake and tornado. 

Alas, shut out from Hope, in a deeper sense than we yet dream ol ! 
For as he wanders wearisomely through this world, he has now lost all 
tidings of another and higher. Full of religion, or at least of religiosity, 
as our Friend has since exhibited himself, he hides not that, in those 
days, he was wholly irreligious : " Doubt had darkened into Unbelief," 
says he ; shade after shade goes grimly over your soul, till you have 
the fixed, starless, "Tartarean black." To such readers as have 
reflected, what can be called reflecting, on man's life, and happily dis- 
covered, in contradiction to much Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, specula- 
tive and practical, that Soul is noi synonymous with stomach; who 
understand, therefore, in our Friend's words, " that for man's well-being. 
Faith is properly the one thing needful ; how, with it. Martyrs, other- 
wise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross ; and, withoui 
it. Worldlings puke up their sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of 
luxury: " to such it will be clear that, for a pure moral nature, the loss 
of his religious Belief was the loss of everything. Unhappy young 
man I All wounds, ihe crush of long continued Destitution, the stab of 
false Friendship, and of false Love, all wounds in thy so genial heart 
would have healed again, had not its life- warmth been withdrawn. 
Well might he exclaim in his wild way : " Is there no God, then ; but 
at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the 
outside of his Universe, and seeing ii go 7 Has the word Duty no 
meaning : is what we call Duty no divine Messenger and Guide, but a 
false earthly Fantasm, made up of Desire and Fear, of emanations from 
the Gallows and from Doctor Graham's Celestial-Bed 1 Happiness of 
an approving Conscience ! Did not Paul of Tarsus, whom admiring 
men have since named Saint, feel that he was ' the chief of sinners ; ' 
and Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit {woIUgemufk), spend much of his 
time in fiddling'? Foolish Word-monger and Motive-grinder, that in 
thy Logic-mill has an earthly mechanism for the Godlike itself, and 
woLildst fain grind me out Virtue from the husks of Pleasure,—! tell 
thee. Nay ! To the unregenerate Prometheus Vinctus of a man, it is 



THE EVERLASTING IN'O. 73 

ever the bitterest aggravation of its wretched ne.ss that he is conscious of 
Virtue, that he feels himself the victim not of suffering only, but of in- 
justice. What then'? Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but 
some Passion ; some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction 
others profit by '? I know not : only this I know, If what thou namest 
Happiness be our true aim, then are we all astray. With Stupidity and 
sound Digestion man may front much. But what in these dull unima- 
ginative days, are the terrors of Conscience to the diseases of the Liver ! 
Not on Morality, but on Cookery let us build our stronghold ; there brand- 
ishing our fryingpan, as censer, let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, 
and live at ease on the fat things which he has provided for his Elect ! " 
Thus must the bewildered Wanderer stand, as so many have done, 
shouting question after question into the Sybil-cave of Destiny, and 
receive no Answer but an Echo. It is all a grim Desert, this once fair 
world of his ; wherein is heard only the howling of wild beasts, or the 
shrieks of despairing, hate-filled men ; and no Pillar of Cloud by day, 
and no Pillar of Fire by night, any longer guides the Pilgrim. To such 
length has the spirit of Inquiry carried him. *' But what boots it {was 
tMds) 1 " cries he : " it is but the common lot m this era. Not having 
come to spiritual majority prior to the Siecle de Louis Qtiinze, and not 
being born purely a Loghead {Dummkopf), thou hadst no other outlook. 
The whole world is, like thee, sold to Unbelief; their old Temples of 
the Godhead, which for long have not been rainproof, crumble down ; 
and men ask now : Where is the Godhead ; our eyes never saw him ! " 
Pitiful enough were it, for all these wild utterances, to call our Dior 
genes wicked. Unprofitable servants as we all are, perhaps at no era 
of his life was he more decisively the Servant of Goodness, the Servant 
of God, than even now when doubting God's existence. " One circum- 
stance I note," says he : " after all the nameless woe that Inquiry, which 
for me, what it is not always, was genuine Love of Truth, had wrought 
me, I nevertheless; siill loved Truth, and would bate no jot of my alle- 
giance to her. ' Truth ! ' I cried, ' though the Heavens crush me for 
following her: no Falsehood! though a whole celestial Lubberland 
were the price of Apostacy.' In conduct it was the same. Had a 
divine Messenger from the clouds or miraculous Handwriting on the 
wall, convincingly proclaimed to me This shall thou do, with what 
passionate readiness, as I often thought, would I have done it, had it 
been leaping into the infernal Fire ! Thus, in spite of all Motive-grind- 
ers, and Mechanical Profit-and-Loss Philosophies, with the sick ophthal- 
mia and hallucination they had brought on, was the Infinite nature of 
Duty still dimly present to me : living without God in the world, of 
God's light I was not utterly bereft; if my as yet sealed eyes, with 
their unspeakable longing, could nowhere see him, nevertheless in my 
heart He was present, and His heaven-written Law still stood legible 
and sacred there.'' 

Meanwhile, under all these tribulations, and temporal and spiritual 
destitutions, what must the Wanderer, in his silent soul, have endured ! 
" The painfullest feeling," writes he, " is that of your own Feebleness 
(IP/ikraft); ever, as the English Milton says, to be weak is the true 
misery. And yet of your Strength there is and can be no clear feeling, 
save by what you have prospered in, by what you have done. Between 
vague wavering Capability and fixed indubitable Performance, what a 
difference ! A certain inarticulate Self-consciousnes-s dwells dimly in 
us ; which only our Works can render articulate and decisively discern- 
ible. Our works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural 
lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible Precept, Knoio thy- 
self ; till it be translated into this partially possible one, Know what thou 
canst work at. 

7 



74 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

■' But for me, so strangely unprosperous had I been, the net result of 
my Workings amounted as yet simply to — Nothing. How then could I 
believe in my Strength, when there was as yet no mirror to see it in 1 
Ever did this agitating, yet as I now perceive, quite frivolous question, 
remain to me insoluble : Hast thou a certain Faculty, a certain Worth, 
such even as the most have not ; or art thou the completest Dullard of 
these modern times 1 Alas ! the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in your- 
self; and how could I believed Had not my first, last faith in myself, 
when even to me the Heavens seemed laid open, and I dared to love, 
been all too cruelly belied'? The speculative Mystery of Life grew ever 
more mysterious to me : neither in the practical Mystery had I made the 
slightest progress but been everywhere buffeted, foiled, and contempt- 
uously cast out. A feeble unit in the middle of a threatening infinitude, 
I seemed to have nothing given me but eyes, whereby to discern my 
own wretchedness. Invisible yet impenetrable walls, as of Enchant- 
ment, divided me from all living : was there in the wide world any true 
bosom I could press trustfully to mine 1 O Heaven, No, there was 
none ! I kept a lock upon my lips : why should I speak much with that 
shifting variety of so-called Friends, in whose withered, vain, and too 
hungry souls. Friendship was but an incredible tradition'? In such 
cases, " your resource is to talk little, and that little mostly from the 
Newspapers. Now when I look back, it was a strange isolation I then 
lived in. The men and women around me, even speaking with me, 
were but Figures ; I had, practically, forgotten that they were alive, 
that they were not merely automatic. In midst of their crowded streets, 
and assemblages, I walked solitary ; and (except as it was my own heart, 
not another's, that I kept devouring) savage also, as the tiger in his 
jungle. Some comfort it would have been, could I, like a Faust, have 
fciucied myself tempted and tormented of the Devil ; for a Hell, as I 
imagine, without Life, though only diabolic Life, were more frightful : 
but in oui' age of Downpulling and Disbelief, the very Devil has been 
pulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me the 
Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hos- 
tility : it was one huge, dead, immeasurable, Steam-engine, rolling on, 
in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. O the vast, gloomy, 
solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death ! Why was the Living banished 
.hither companionless, conscious 1 Why if there is no Devil ; nay, 
unless the Devil is your God'?" 

A ptr«ey incessantly to such corrosions, might not, moreover, as the 
worst aggravation to them, the iron constitution even of a Teufelsdrockh 
threaten to fail 1 We conjecture that he has known sickne-ss ; and, in 
spite of his locomotive habits, perhaps sickness of the chronic sort. Hear 
this, for example: " How beautifiTl to die of broken-heart, on Paper! 
Cluite another thing in Practice ; every window of your Fe-aling, even 
, of your Intellect, as it were, begrimed and mud-bespattered, so that no 
,' pure ray can enter ; a whole Drugshop in your inwards ; the foredone 
soul drowning slowly in quagmires of Disgust!" 

Putting all which external and internal miseries together, may we not 
find in the following sentences, quite in our Professor's still vein, sig- 
nificance enough: " From Suicide a certain after-shine (Nackschein) of 
Christianity withheld me : perhaps also a certain indolence of charac- 
ter ; for, was not that a remedy I had at any time Avithin reach'? Often, 
however, was there a question present to me : Should some one now, at 
the turning of that corner, blow thee suddenly out of Space, into the other 
World, or other no- world, by pistol-shot, — how were if? On which 
ground, too, I have often, in sea-storms and sieged cities and other death- 
scenes, exhibited an imperturbability, which passed for courage." 
" So had it lasted," concludes the Wanderer, " so had it lasted, as in 



CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 76 

bitter protracted Death-agony, through long years. The heart within 
me, im visited by any heavenly dewdrop, was smouldering in sulphurous, 
slow-consuming fire. Almost since earliest memory I had shed no tear ; 
or once only when I, murmuring halt-audibly, recited Faust's Death- 
song, that wild Selig der den er im Siegesglanze findet (Happy whom 
he finds in Battle's splendor), and thought that of this last Friend even I 
was not forsaken, that Destiny itself could not doom me not to die. Hav- 
ing no hope, neither had I any definite fear, were it of Man or of Devil : 
nay, I often felt as if it might be solacing, could the Arch-Devil himself, 
though in Tartarean terrors, but rise to me, that I might tell him a little 
of my mind. And yet, strangely enough, I lived in a continual, indefi- 
nite, pining fear ; tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive of I knew not 
what : it seemed as if all things in the Heavens above and the Earth be- 
neath would hurt me ; as if the Heavens and the Earth were but bound- 
less Jaws of a devouring Monster, wherein I, palpitating, waited to be 
devoured. 

" Full of such humor, and perhaps the miserablest man in the whole 
French Capital or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dogday, after much per- 
ambulation, toiling along the dirty little Rue Saint Thomas de I'Enfer, 
among civic rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere, and over pavements 
hot as Nebuchadnezzar's Furnace ; whereby doubtless my spirits were 
little cheered ; when, all at once, there rose a Thought in me, and I 
asked myself: ' What art thou afraid of? Wherefore, like a coward, 
dost thou for ever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling 1 
Despicable biped ! what is the sam-total of the worst that lies before 
thee 1 Death % Well, Death ; and say the pangs of Tophet too, and 
all that the Devil and Man may, will, or can do against thee ! Hast 
thou not a heart ; canst thou not suffer whatso it be ; and, as a Child of 
Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it 
consumes thee'? Let it come, then; I will meet it and defy it"?' And 
as I so thought, there rushed like a stream of fire over my whole soul ; 
and I shook base Fear away from me for ever. I was strong, of un- 
known strength ; a spirit, almost a god. Ever from that time, the tem- 
per of my misery was changed : not Fear or whining Sorrow was it, but 
Indignation and grim fire-eyed Defiance." 

" Thus had the Everlasting No {das Ewige NeivA pealed authorita- 
tively through all the recesses of my Being, of my Me ; and then was it 
that my whole Me stood up, in native God-created majesty, and with 
emphasis recorded its Protest. Such a Protest, the most important trans- 
action in Life, may that same Indignation and Defiance, in a psycholo- 
gical point of view, be fitly called. The Everlasting No had said : 'Be- 
hold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine (the Devil's);' 
to which my whole Me now made answer : ' / am not thine, but Free, 
and for ever hate thee !' 

" It is from this hour that I date my Spiritual New-birth, or Bapho- 
metic Fire-baptism; perhaps I directly thereupon began to be a Man." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 

Though, after this " Baphometic Fire-baptism" of his, our Wanderer 
signifies that his Unrest was but increased ; as, indeed " Indignation and 
Defiance," especially against things in general, are not the most peacea- 
ble inmates ; yet can the Psychologist surmise that it was no longer a 
quite hopeless Unrest ; that henceforth it had at least a fixed centre to 
revolve round. For the fire-baptised soul, long so scathed and thunder- 



76 SARTOR RESARTTJS. 

riven, here feels its own Freedom, which feeling is its Baphometic Bap- 
tism : the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus gained by assault, and 
will keep inexpugnable ; outwards from which the remaining dominions, 
not indeed without hard battling, will doubtless b}^ degrees be conquered 
and pacificated. Under another figure, we might say, if in that great 
moment, in the Rue Saint Thomas de I'Enfer, the old inward Satanic 
School was not yet thrown out of doors, it received peremptorj^ judicial 
notice to quit; — whereby, for the rest, its howl-chantings, Ernulphus- 
cursings, and rebellious gnashings of teeth, might, in the mean while, 
become only the more tumultuous, and difficult to keep secret. 

Accordingly, if we scrutinize these Pilgrimings well, there is perhaps 
discernible henceforth a certain incipient method in their madness. Not 
wholly as a Spectre does Teufelsdrockh now storm through the world ; 
at worst as a spectre-fighting Man, nay that v/ill one day be a Spectre- 
queller. If pilgriming restlessly to so many " Saints' Wells," and ever 
without quenching of his thirst, he nevertheless finds little secular wells, 
whereby from time to time some alleviation is ministered. In a word, 
he is now, if not ceasing, yet intermitting to " eat his own heart ;" and 
clutches round him outwardly, on the Not-me, for wholesomer food. 
Does not the following glimpse exhibit him in a much more natural state ? 

" Towns also and Cities, especially the ancient, I failed not to look 
upon with interest. How beautiful to see thereby, as through a long- 
vista, into the remote Time ; to have, as it were, an actual section of 
almost the earliest Past brought safe into the Present, and set before your 
eyes! There, in that old City, was a live ember of Culinary Fire put 
down, say only two thousand years ago ; and there, burning more or less 
triumphantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, it has burnt, and still 
burns, and thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof Ah ! and the far 
more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then also put down there ; 
and still miraculously burns and spreads ; and the smoke and ashes 
thereof (in these Judgment-Halls and Churchyards), and its bellows- 
engines (in these Churches), thou still seest ; and its flame, looking out 
from every kind countenance, and every hateful one, still warms thee or 
scorches thee. 

" Of Man's Activity and Attainment the chief results are aeriform, 
mystic, and preserved in Tradition only : such are his Forms of Gov- 
ernment, with the Authority they rest on ; his Customs, or Fashions both 
of Cloth-habits and of Soul-habits ; much more his collective stock of 
Handicrafts, the whole Faculty he has required of manipulating Na- 
ture : all these things, as indispensable and priceless as they are, cannot 
in any way be fixed under lock and key, but must flit, spirit-like, on im- 
palpable vehicles, from Father to Son ; if you demand sight of them, 
they are nowhere to be met with. Visible Ploughmen and Hammer- 
men there have been, ever from Cain and Tubal cain downwards : but 
where does your accumulated Agricultural, Metallurgic, and other Ma- 
nufacturing Skill lie warehoused 1 It transmits itself on the atmospheric 
air, on the sun's rays, by Hearing and by Vision ; it is a thing aeriform, 
impalpable, of quite a spiritual sort. In like manner, ask me not. 
Where are the Laws; where is the Government'? In vain wilt thou 
go to Schoubrunn, to Downing Street, to the Palais Bourbon : thou find- 
est nothing there, but brick or stone houses, and some bundles of Papers 
tied with tape. Where then is that same cunningly-devised almighty 
Government of theirs to be laid hands on '? Everywhere, yet nowhere : 
seen only in its works, this too is a thing aeriform, invisible : or if you 
will, mystic and miraculous. So spiritual (geistig) is our whole daily 
Life : all that we do springs out of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force ; 
only like a little Cloud-image, or Armida's Palace, air-built, does the 
Actual body itself forth from the great mystic Deep. 



CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. If 

•'Visible and tangible products of the Past, again, I reckon up to the 
extent of three: Cities, with their Cabinets and Arsenals; then tilled 
Fields, to either or to both of which divisions Roads with their Bridges 
may belong; and thirdly Books, In which third truly, the last- 
invented, lies a worth far surpassing that of the two others. Wondrous 
indeed is the virtue of a true Book. Not like a dead City of stones, 
yearly crumbling, yearly needing repair ; more like a tilled Field, but 
then a spiritual Field : like a spiritual Tree, let me rather say, it stands 
from year to year, and from age to age (we have Books that already 
number some hundred-and-fifty human ages) ; and yearly comes its ncT^ 
produce of Leaves (Commentaries, Deductions, Philosophical, Political 
Systems ; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, Journalistic Essays), 
every one of which talismanic and thaumaturgic, for it can persuade 
men. O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two cen- 
turies or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they 
name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Con- 
queror or City-burner ! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor ; but of 
the true sort, namely over the Devil : thou too hast built what will out- 
last all marble and metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a 
Temple and Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the 
Earth will pilgrim. — Fool ! why journeyest thou wearisomely, in thy 
antiquarian fervor, to gaze on the stone Pyramids of Geeza, or the clay 
ones of Sacchara '? These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, 
looking over the Desert, foolishly enough, for the last three thousand 
years : but canst thou not open thy Hebrew Bible, then, or even Luther's 
Version thereof?" 

No less satisfactory is his sudden appearance not in Battle, yet on 
some Battle-field; which, we soon gather, must be that of Wagram; so 
that here, for once, is a certain approximation to distinctness of date. 
Omitting much, let us impart what follows : 

" Horrible enough ! A whole Marchfeld strewed with shell-splinters, 
cannon-shot, ruined tumbrills, and dead men and horses ; stragglers still 
remaining not so much as buried. And those red mould heaps : aye, 
there lie the Shells of Men, out of which all the Life and Virtue has 
been blown ; and now are they swept together, and crammed down out 
of sight, like blown Egg-shells ! — Did Nature, when she bade the Donau 
bring down his mould-cargoes from the Carinthian and Carpathian 
Heights, and" spread them out here into the softest, richest level, — intend 
thee, O Marchfeld, for a corn-bearing Nursery, whereon her children 
might be nursed ; or for a Cockpit, wherein they might the more com- 
modiously be throttled and tattered 1 Were thy three broad Highways, 
meeting here from the ends of Europe, made for Ammunition-waggons, 
then 1 Were thy Wagrams and Stillfrieds but so many ready-built 
Casemates, wherein the house of Hapsburg might batter with artillery, 
and with artillery be battered 1 Konig Ottokar, amid yonder hillocks, 
dies- under Rodolf 's truncheon ; here Kaiser Franz falls a-swoon under 
Napoleon's : within which five centuries, to omit the others, how has thy 
breast, fair Plain, been defaced and defiled ! The greensward is torn 
up and trampled down ; man's fond care of it, his fruit-trees, hedge- 
rows, and pleasant-dwellings, blown away with gunpowder; and the 
kind seedfield lies a desolate, hideous Place of Sculls. — Nevertheless, 
Nature is at work; neither shall these Powder-Devilkins with their 
utmost devilry gainsay her : but all that gore and carnage will be shroud- 
ed in, absorbed into manure ; and next year the Marchfeld will be green, 
nay greener. Thrifty unwearied Nature, ever out of green waste educ- 
ing some little profit of thy own, — how dost thou, fro^n the very carcass 
of the Killer, bring Life for the Living ! 
" What, speaking in quite unofticial language, is tl>e net purport and 



78 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

upshot of war 1 To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and 
toil in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred 
souls. From these, by certain ' Natural Enemies ' of the French, there 
are successively selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied 
men : Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them ; 
she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and 
even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another 
hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Ne- 
vertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all 
dressed m red ; and shipped away, at the public charges, some two 
thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain ; and fed there till 
wanted. And now to that same spot in the south of Spain, are thirty 
similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner 
wending : till at length, after infinite efitbrt, the two parties come into 
actual juxta-position; and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with a 
gun in his hand. Straightway the word 'Fire!' is given; and they 
blow the souls out of one another ; and in place of sixty brisk useful 
craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses which it must bury, and 
anew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel 1 Busy as the Devil 
is, not the smallest ! They lived far enough apart ; were the entirest 
strangers ; naj'", in so wide a. Universe, there was even, unconsciously, 
by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then'? 
Simpleton ! their Governors had fallen out ; and, instead of shooting one 
another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot. — Alas, so 
is it in Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands ; still, as of old, 
' what devilry soever Kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper !' — In that 
fiction of the English Smollett, it is true, the final Cessation of War is 
perhaps prophetically shadowed forth ; where the two Natural Enemies, 
in person, take each a Tobacco-pipe, filled with Brimstone ; light the 
same, and smoke in one another's faces, till the weaker gives in : but 
from such predicted Peace-Era, what blood-filled trenches, and conten- 
tious centuries, may still divide us !" 

Thus can the Professor, at least in lucid intervals, look away from his 
own sorrows, over the many-colored world, and pertinently enough note 
what is passing there. We may remark, indeed, that for the matter of 
spiritual culture, if for nothing else, perhaps few periods of his life were 
richer than this. Internally, there is the most momentous instructive 
Course of Practical Philosophy, with Experiments, going on ; towards 
the right comprehension of which his Peripatetic habits, favorable to 
Meditation, might help him rather than hinder. Externally, again, as 
he wanders to and fro, there are, if for the longing heart little substance, 
yet for the seeing eye sights enough : in these so boundless Travels of 
his, granting that the Satanic School was even partially kept down, 
what an incredible Knowledge of our Planet, and its Inhabitants and 
their Works, that is to say, of all knowable things, might not Teufels- 
drockh acquire ! 

" I have read in most Public Libraries," says he, " including those of 
Constantinople and Samarcand : in most Colleges, except the Chinese 
Mandaria ones, I have studied, or seen that there was no studying. Un- 
known Languages have I oftenest gathered from their natural repertory, 
the Air, by my organ of Hearing ; Statistics, Geographies, Topogra- 
phies came, through the Eye, almost of their own accord. The ways 
of Man, how he seeks food, and warmth, and protection for himself, in 
most regions, are ocularly known to me. Like the great Hadrian, I 
meted out much of the terraqueous Globe with a pair of Compasses that 
belonged to myself only. 

" Of great Scenes, why speak 1 Three summer days, I lingered re- 
jecting, and even composing ^dicMete), by the Pine- chasms of Vau- 



CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 79 

cluse; and in that clear Lakelet moistened my bread. I have sat under 
the palm-trees of Tadmor ; smoked a pipe among the ruins of Babylon. 
The great Wall of China I have seen; and can testify that it is of grey 
brick, coped and covered with granite, and shows only second-rate ma- 
sonry. — Great Events, also, have I not witnessed 1 Kings sweated down 
{ausgemergelt) into Berlin-and-Milan Customhouse-officers ; the World 
well w^on, and the World well lost ; oftener than once a hundred thou- 
sand individuals shot (by each other) in one day. All kindreds and 
peoples and nations dashed together, and shifted and shovelled into 
heaps, that they might ferment there, and in time unite. The birth- 
pangs of Democracy, wherewith convulsed Europe was groaning in cries 
that reached Heaven, could not escape me. 

" For great Men I have ever had the warmest predilection ; and can 
perhaps boast that few such in this era have wholly escaped me. Great 
Men are the inspired (speaking and acting) Texts of that divine Book 
OF Revelations, whereof a Chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, 
and by some named History ; to which inspired Texts your numerous 
talented men, and your innumerable untalented men, are the beiter or 
worse exegetic Commentaries, and waggon-load of too-stupid, heretical 
or orthodox, weekly Sermons. For my study, the inspired Texts them- 
selves ! Thus did^ I not, in very early days, having disguised me as 
tavern-waiter, stand behind the field-chairs, under that shady Tree at 
Treisnitz by the Jena Highway ; waiting upon the great Schiller and 
greater Goethe ; and hearing what I have not forgotten. For " 

But at this point the Editor recalls his principle of caution, some 

time ago laid down, and must suppress much. Let not the sacredness 
of Laurelled, still more, of Crowned Heads, be tampered with. Should 
we, at a future day, find circumstances altered, and the time come for 
Publication, then may these glimpses into the privacy of the Blustrious 
be conceded ; which for the present were little better than treacherous, 
perhaps traitorous Eavesdroppings. Of Lord Byron, therefore, of Pope 
Pius, Emperor Tarakwang, and the " White Water-roses" (Chinese 
Carbonari) with their mysteries, no notice here ! Of Napoleon himself 
we shall only, glancing from afar, remark that Teufelsdrockh's relation 
to him seems to have been of a very varied character. At first we find 
our poor Professor on the point of being shot as a spy ; then taken into 
private conversation, even pinched on the ear, yet presented with no 
money : at last indignantly dismissed, almost thrown out of doors, as an 
" Ideologist." " He himself," says the Professor, " was among the com- 
pletest Ideologists, at least Ideopraxists : in the Idea {in der Idee) he liv- 
ed, moved, and fought. The man was a Divine Missionary, though 
unconscious of it; and preached, through the cannon's throat, that great 
doctrine. La carrUre ouverte aux talens (The Tools to him that can han- 
dle them), which is our ultimate Political Evangel, wherein alone can 
Liberty lie. Madly enough he preached, it is true, as Enthusiasts and 
first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance, amid much frothy 
rant ; yet as articulately perhaps as the case admitted. Or call him, if 
you will, an American Backwoods-man, who had to fell unpenetrated 
forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely forbear 
strong liquor, rioting, and even theft ; whom, notwithstanding, the 
peaceful Sower will follow, and, as he cuts the boundless harvest, bless." 

More legitimate and decisively authentic is Teufelsdrockh's appear- 
ance and emergence (we know not well whence) in the solitude of the 
North Cape, on that June Midnight. He has a " light-blue Spanish 
cloak" hanging round him, as his " most commodious, principal, indeed 
sole upper-garment ;" and stands there, on the World-promontory, look- 
ing over the infinite Brine, like a little blue Belfry (as Ave figure), now 
motionless indeed, yet ready, if stirred, to ring quaintest changes. 



80 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

" Silence as of Death," writes he; " for Midnight, even in the Arctic 
latitudes, has its character : nothing but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged, 
the peaceable gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean, over which in 
the utmost North the great Sun hangs low and lazy, as if he too were 
slumbering. Yet is his cloud-couch wrought of crimson and cloth of 
gold ; yet does his light stream over the mirror of waters, like a tremu- 
lous fire-pillar, shooting downwards to the abyss, and hide itself under 
my feet. In such moments, Solitude also is invaluable ; for who would 
speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies all Europe and Africa, 
fast asleep, except the watchmen ; and before him the silent Immensity, 
and Palace of the Eternal, whereof our Sun is but a porch-lamp. 

"Nevertheless, in this solemn moment, comes a man, or monster, 
scrambling from among the rock-hollows ; and, shaggy, huge as the Hy- 
perborean Bear, hails me in Russian speech : most probably, therefore, a 
Russian Smuggler, With courteous Brevity, I signify my indifference 
to contraband trade, my humane intentions, yet strong wish to be pri- 
vate. In vain : the monster, counting doubtless on his superior stature, 
and minded to make sport for himself, or perhaps profit, were it with 
murder, continues to advance ; ever assailing me with his importunate 
train-oil breath ; and now has advanced, till we stand both on the verge 
of the rock, the deep sea rippling greedily down below. What argu- 
ment will avail ? On the thick Hyperborean, cherubic reasoning, sera- 
phic eloquence were lost. Prepared for such extremity, I, deftly enough, 
whisk aside one step ; draw out, from my interior reservoirs, a sufficient 
Birmingham Horse-pistol, and say ' Be so obliging as retire, Friend {Er 
ziehe sich zuruck, F'reund), and with promptitude !' This logic even the 
Hyperborean understands-, fast enough, with apologetic, petitionary 
growl, he sidles off; and, except for suicidal as well as homicidal pur- 
poses, need not return. 

" Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gunpowder : that it makes all 
men alike tall. Nay, if thou be cooler, cleverer than I, if thou have 
more Mind, though all but no Body whatever, then canst thou kill me 
first, and art the taller. Hereby, at last, is the Goliath po\verless, and 
the David resistless ; savage Animalism is nothing, inventive Spiritual- 
ism is all. 

" With respect to Duels, indeed, I have my own ideas. Few things, in 
this so surprising world, strike me with more surprise. Two little 
visual Spectra of men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the 
midst of the Unfathomable, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very 
soon, — make pause at the distance of twelve paces asunder; whirl 
round ; and, simultaneously by the cunningest mechanism, explode one 
another into Dissolution; and off-hand become Air, and Non-extant! 
Deuce on it (verdammt), the little spitfires ! — Nay, I think with old Hugo 
von Trimberg: ' God must needs laugh outright, could such a thing be, 
to see his wondrous Mannikins here below.' " 

But amid these specialities, let us not forget the great generality, 
which is our chief quest here : How prospered the inner man of Teu- 
felsdrockh under so much outward shifting 1 Does Legion still lurk in 
him, though repressed ; or has he exorcised that Devil's Brood 1 We 
can answer that the symptoms continue promising. Experience is the 
grand spiritual Doctor ; and with him Teufelsdrockh has now been long 
a patient, swallowing many a bitter bolus. Unless our poor Friend be- 
long to the numerous class of Incurables, which seems not likely, some 
cure will doubtless be effected. We should rather say that Legion, or 
the Satanic School, was now pretty well extirpated and cast out, but 
next to nothing introduced in its room ; whereby the heart remains, for 
the while, in a quiet but no comfortable state. 

" At length, after so much roasting," thus writes our Autobiographer, 



THE EVERLASTINCr YEA. 81 

" 1 was what you might name calcined. Pray only that it be not rather, 
as is the more frequent issue, reduced to a capwt-mortuum! But in any 
case, by mere dint of practice, I had grown familiar with many things. 
Wretchedness was still wretched ; but I could now partly see through it, 
and despise it. Which highest mortal, in this inane Existence, had I 
not found a Shadow-hunter, or Shadow-hunted ; and, when I looked 
through his brave garnitures, miserable enough % Thy wishes have all 
been sniffed aside, thought I: but what, had they even been all granted ! 
Did not the Boy Alexander weep because he had not two Planets to 
conquer ; or a whole Solar System ; or after that, a whole Universe % 
Ach Gott, when I gazed into these Stars, have they not looked down on 
me as if with pity from their serene spaces ; like Eyes glistening with 
heavenly tears over the little lot of man ! Thousands of human gene- 
rations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up of Time, and 
there remains no wreck of them any more ; and Arcturus and Orion 
and Sirius and Pleiades are still shining in their courses, clear and 
young, as when the Shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar. 
Pshaw ! what is this paltry little Dog-cage of an Earth ; what art thou 
that sittest whining there '? Thou art still Nothing, Nobody : true ; but 
who then is Something, Somebody 1 For thee the Family of Man has. 
no use ; it rejects thee ; thou art wholly as a dissevered limb : so be it ; 
perhaps it is better so !" 

Too heavy-laden Teufelsdrdckh ! Yet surely his bands are loosen- 
ing ; one day he will hurl the burden far from him, and bound forth free, 
and with a second youth, 

" This," says our Professor, " was the Centre of Indifference I had 
now reached ; through which whoso travels from the Negative Pole to 
the Positive must necessarily pass." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE EVERLASTING YBA. 

" Temptations in the Wilderness !" exclaims Teufelsdrockh : " Have 
we not all to be tried with such 1 Not so easily can the old Adam, 
lodged in us by birth, be dispossessed. Our Life is compassed round 
with Necessity ; yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedonij 
than Voluntary Force : thus have we a warfare ; in the beginning, es- 
pecially, a hard-fought battle. For the God-given mandate. Work thou 
in Welldomg, lies mysteriously written, in Promethean, Prophetic Cha- 
racters, in our hearts ; and leaves us no rest, night or day, till it be de- 
ciphered and obeyed; till it burn forth, in our conduct, a visible, acted 
Gospel of Freedom. And as ihe clay-given mandate, Eat thou and be 
filled^ at the same time, persuasively proclaims itself through every 
nerve, — must there not be a confusion, a contest, before the better In- 
fluence can become the upper 1 

" To me nothing seems more natural than that the Son of Man, when 
such God-given mandate first prophetically stirs within him, and the 
Clay must now be vanquished or vanquish,— should be carried of the 
spirit into grim Solitudes, and there fronting the Tempter do grimmest 
battle with him ; defiantly setting him at naught, till he yield and fly. 
Name it as we choose ; with or without visible Devil, whether in the na- 
tural Desert of rocks and sands, or in the populous moral Desert of self- 
ishness and baseness, — to such Temptation are we all called. Unhappy 
if we are not ! Unhappy if we are but Half-men, in whom that divine 
hand-writing has never blazed forth, all-subduing, in true sun-splendor; 
:3ut quivers dubiously amid meaner lights . or smoulders, in dull pain, in 



82 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

darkness, under earthly vapors! — Our "Wilderness is the wide World in 
an Atheistic Century ; our Forty Days are long years of suflfering and 
fasting : nevertheless, to these also comes an end. Yes, to me also was 
given, if not Victory, yet the consciousness of Battle, and the resolve to 
persevere therein while life or faculty is left. To me also, entangled in 
the enchanted forests, demon-peopled, doleful of sight and of sound, it 
was given, after weariest wanderings, to work out my way into the 
higher sunlit slopes — of that Mountain which has no summit, or whose 
summit is in Heaven only !" 

He says elsewhere, under a less ambitious figure ; as figures are, once 
for all, natural to him: " Has not thy Life been that of most sufficient 
men {tuchtigen Manner') thou hast known in this generation '? An out- 
flush of foolish young Enthusiasm, like the first fallovz-crop, wherein 
are as many weeds as valuable herbs : this all parched away, under the 
Droughts of practical and spiritual Unbelief; as Disappointment, in 
thought and act, often-repeated gave rise to Doubt, and Doubt gradually 
settled into Denial ! If I have had a second-crop, and now see the per- 
ennial greensward, and sit under umbrageous cedars, which defy all 
Drought (and Doubt) : herein too, be the Heavens praised, I am not with- 
out examples, and even exemplars." 

So that for Teufelsdrockh also there has been a " glorious revolution :" 
these mad shadow-hunting and shadow-hunted Pilgrimings of his, were 
but some purifying " Temptation in the Wilderness," before his aposto- 
lic work (such as it was) could begin; which Temptation is now hap- 
pily over, and the Devil once more worsted ! Was " that high moment 
in the Rue de VEnfer^'' then, properly the turning point of the battle ; 
when the Fiend said, Wonhi'p me or he torn in shreds, and was answered 
valiantly with an Apage Satanas ? — Singular Teufelsdrockh, would thou 
kadst told thy singular story in plain words ! But it is fruitless to look 
there, in those Paper-bags, for such. Nothing but inuendoes, figurative 
crotchets : a typical Shadow, fitfully wavering, prophetico-satiric ; no 
clear logical Picture. " How paint to the sensual eye," asks he once, 
" what passes in the Holy-of-Holies of Man's Soul ; in what words, 
known to these profane times, speak even afar off" of the unspeakable ?' 
We ask in turn ; Why perplex these times, profane as they are, with 
needless obscurity, by omission and by commission 1 Not mystical only 
is our Professor, but whimsical ; and involves himself, now more than 
ever, in eye-bewildering cJiiaroscuro. Successive glimpses, here faith- 
fully imparted, our more gifted readers must endeavor to combine for 
their own behoof 

He says: " The hot Harmattan-wind had raged itself out; its howl 
went silent within me ; and the long-deafened soul could now hear. 1 
paused in my wild wanderings ; and sat me down to wait, and consider; 
for it was as if the hour of change drew nigh, I seemed to surrender, 
to renounce utterly, and say : Fly, then, false shadows of Hope ; I will 
chase you no more, I will believe you no more. And ye too, haggard 
spectres of Fear, I care not for you ; ye too are all shadows and a lie. 
Let me rest here : for I am way-weary and life- weary ; I will rest here, 
were it but to die : to die or to live is alike to me ; alike insignificant." 
— And again : " Here, then, as I lay in that Centre of Indifference ; 
cast, doubtless, by benignant upper Influence, into a healing sleep, the 
heavy dreams rolled gradually away, and I awoke to a new Heaven and 
a new Earth. The first preliminary moral Act, Annihilation of Self 
(Sebst-tddtung), had been happily accomplished; and my mind's eyes 
were now unsealed, and its hands ungyved." 

Might we not also conjecture that the following passage refers to his 
Locality, during this same "healing sleep;" that his Pilgrim-staff" lies 
cast aside h«re, on the high table-land ;" and indeed that the repose is 



THE EVERLASTING YEA. 88 

already taking wholesome effect on him'? If it were not that the tone, 
in some parts, has more of riancy, even of levity, than we could have 
expected! However, in Teiifelsdrockh, there is always the strangest 
Dualism: light dancing with guitar-music, will be going on in the fore- 
court, while by iits from within comes the faint whimpering of woe and 
wail. We transcribe the piece entire : 

" Beautiful it was to sit there, as in ray skyey Tent, musing and me- 
ditating ; on the high table-land, in front of the Mountains ; over me, as 
roof, the azure Dome, and around me, for walls, four azure flowing 
curtains, — namely, of the Four azure Winds, on whose bottom-fringes 
also I have seen gilding. And then to fancy the fair Castles that 
stood sheltered in these Mountain hollows ; with their green flower 
lawns, and white dames and damosels, lovely enough : or better still, the 
straw-roofed Cottages, wherein stood many a Mother baking bread, with 
her children round her : — all hidden and protectingly folded up in the 
valley-folds ; yet there and alive, as sure as if I beheld them. Or to see, 
as well as fancy, the nine Towns and Villages, that lay round my moun- 
tain-seat, which, in still weather, were wont to speak to me (by their 
steeple-bells) with metal tongue ; and, in almost all weather, proclaimed 
their vitality by repeated Smoke-clouds ; whereon, as on a culinary horo- 
loge, I might read the hour of the day. For it was the smoke of cook- 
ery, as kind housewives, at morning, midday, eventide, were boiling 
their husbands' kettles ; and ever a blue pillar rose up into the air, suc- 
cessively or simultaneously, from each of the nine, saying, as plainly 3.s 
smoke could say : Such and such a meal is getting ready here. Not 
uninteresting ! For you have the whole Borough, with all its love-mak- 
ings and scandal-mongeries, contentions and contentments, as in minia- 
ture, and could cover it all with your hat. — If, in my wide Wayfarings, 
I had learned to look into the business of the World in its details, here 
perhaps was the place for combining it into general propositions, and 
deducing inferences therefrom. 

" Often also could I see the black Tempest marching in anger through 
the Distance : round some Schreckhorn, as yet grim-blue, would the 
eddying vapor gather, and there tumultuously eddy, and flow down like 
a mad witch's hair ; till, after a space, it vanished, and in the clear sun- 
beam, your Schreckhorn stood smiling grim-white, for the vapor had 
held snow. How thou fermentest and elaboratest, in thy great ferment- 
ing-vat and laboratory of an Atmosphere, of a World, O Nature ! — Or 
what is Nature 1 Ha ! why do I not name thee God 1 Art thou not the 
' Living Garment of God V O Heavens, is it, in very deed. He then 
that ever speaks through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that liv^es 
and loves in me 1 

" Foreshadows, call them rather fore-splendors, of that Truth, and 
Beginning of Truths, fell mysteriously over my soul. Sweeter than 
Dayspring to the Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla ; ah ! like the mother's 
voice to her little child that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown 
tumults; like soft streamings of celestial music to my too exasperated 
heart, came that Evangel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a 
charnel-house with spectres ; but godlike, and my Father's ! 

■' With other eyes too could I now look upon my fellow man ; with an 
infinite Love, an infinite Pity. Poor, wandering, wayward man ! Art 
thou not tried, and beaten with stripes, even as I am 7 Ever, whether 
thou bear the Royal mantle or the Beggar's gabardine, art thou not so 
weary, so heavy-laden; and thy Bed of Rest is but a Grave. O, my 
Brother ,^my Brother ! why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe 
away all tears from, thy eyes. — Truly, the din of many-voiced Life, 
which, in this solitude, with the mind's organ, I could hear, was no 
longer a maddening discord, but a melting one : like inarticulate cries, 



84> SARTOR RESARTUS. 

and sobbings of a dumb creature, which in the ear of Heaven are 
prayers. The poor Earth, with her poor joys, was now my needy Mo- 
ther, not my cruel Stepdame ; Man, with his so mad Wants and so 
mean Endeavors, had become the dearer to me ; and even for his suffer- 
ings and his sins, I now first named him Brother. Thus was I standing 
in the porch of that ' Sanctuary of Sorrow ;' by strange, steep ways, had 
I too been guided thither ; and ere long its sacred gates would open, and 
the ' Divine Depth of Sorrow^ lie disclosed to me." 

The Professor says, he here first got eye on the Knot that had been 
strangling him, and straightway could unfasten it, and was free. " A 
vain interminable controversy," writes he, " touching what is at present 
called Origin of Evil, or some such thing, arises in every soul, since the 
beginning of the world; and in every soul, that would pass from idle 
Sufiering into actual Endeavoring, must first be put an end to. The 
most, in our time, have to go content with a simple, incomplete enough 
Suppression of this controversy; to a few some Solution of it is indis- 
pensable. In every new era, too, such Solution comes out in different 
terms ; and ever the Solution of the last era has become obsolete, and is 
found unserviceable. For it is man's nature to change his Dialect from 
century to century ; he cannot help it though he would. The authentic 
Church- Catechism of our present century has not yet fallen into my hands : 
meanwhile, for my own private behoof, I attempt to elucidate the matter 
so. Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness ; it is 
because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he can- 
not quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers and 
Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake, in joint- 
stock company, to make one Shoeblack happy'? They cannot accom- 
plish it, above an hour or two ; for the Shoeblack also has a Soul quite 
Other than his Stomach ; and Avould require, if you consider it, for his 
permanent satisfaction and saturation, simply this allotment, no more, 
and no less : God's infinite Universe altogether to himself^ therein to en- 
joy infinitely, and fill every wish as fast as it rose. Oceans of Hoch- 
heimer, a Throat like that of Ophiuchus : speak not of them ; to the 
infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is your ocean filled, 
than he grumbles that it might have been of better vintage. Try him 
with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarrelling with 
the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself the most maltreated 
of men. — Always there is a black spot in our sunshine : it is even, as I 
said, the Shadow of Ourselves. 

" But the whim we have of Happiness is somewhat thus. By certain 
valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort 
of average terrestrial lot ; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of 
indefeasible right. It is simple payment of our wages,' of our deserts ; 
requires neither thanks nor complaint : only such overplus SiS there may 
be do we account Happiness ; any deficit again is Misery. Now con- 
sider that we have the valuation of our own deserts ourselves, and what 
a fund of Self-conceit there is in each of us, — do you wonder that tne 
balance should so often dip the wrong way, and many a Blockhead cry : 
See there, what a payment ; was ever worthy gentleman so used ! — I tell 
thee. Blockhead, it all comes of thy Vanity; of what thou /«7iae5f those 
same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be hanged (as 
is most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that thou 
deservest to Idc hanged in hair-halter, it will be a luxury to die in hemp. 

" So true is it, what I then said, that the Fraction of Life can he 
tncreased in value not so much by increasing your Numerator as by less- 
ening your Denominator. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive me, Unity 
itself divided by Zero will give Infinity. Make thy claim of wages a 



THE EVEELASTirv'G YEA. 85 

zero, then; thou hast the world under thy feet. Well did the Wisest 
of our time write : ' It is onlj^ with Renunciation {EnLsagcn) that Life, 
jiroperly speaking, can be said to begin.' 

" I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, thou hast 
been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-tormenting, on account 
of? Say it in a word : is it not because thou art not happy'? Because 
the Thou (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honored, nourished, soft- 
bedded, and lovingly cared for ? Foolish soul ! What Act of Legisla- 
ture was there that thou shouldst be Happy 1 A little while ago thou 
hadst no right to be at all. What if thou wert born and predestined not 
to be Happy, but to be Unhappy ! Art thou nothing other than a Vul- 
ture, then, that lliest through the Universe seeking after somewhat to 
eat ; and shrieking dolefully because carrion enough is not given thee? 
Close thy Byron ; open thy Goethe^ 

'■'■Es leuchiet mir cm, I see a glimpse of it !" cries he elsewhere : "there 
is in man a Higher than Love of Happiness : he can do without Hap- 
piness, and instead thereof h.nd Blessedness ! Was it not to preach forth 
this same Higher that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest, in ail 
times, have spoken and suffered ; bearing testimony, through life and 
through death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the Godlike 
only has he Strength and Freedom 1 Which God-inspired doctrine arc 
thou too honored to be taught ; O Heavens ! and broken with manifold 
merciful Afflictions, even till thou become contrite, and learn it ! O 
thank thy Destiny for these ; thankfully bear what yet remain : thou 
hadst need of them : the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By benig- 
nant fever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Disease, 
and triumphs over Death. On the roaring billows of Time, thou art 
not engulphed, but borne aloft in the azure of Eternity. Love not Plea- 
sure ; love God. This is the Everlasting Yea, wherein all contradic- 
tion is solved ; wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him.' 

And again : " Small is it that thou canst trample the Earth with its 
injuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee : thou canst love 
the Earth w^hile it injures thee, and even because it injures thee ; for 
this a Greater than Zeno was needed, and he too was i.ent. Knowest 
thou that " Worship of Sorrow ?" The Temple thereof, opened some 
eighteen centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the 
habitation of doleful creatures; nevertheless, venture forward; in a low- 
crypt, arched out of falling fragments, thou iindest the Altar still there, 
and its sacred Lamp perennially burning." 

Without pretending to comment on which strange utterances, the Edi- 
tor will only remark that there lies beside them much of a still more 
questionable character ; unsuited to the general apprehension ; nay, 
wherein he himself does not see his way. Nebulous disquisitions on 
Religion, yet not without bursts of splendor ; on the " perennial conti- 
nuance of Inspiration ;" on Prophecy ; that there are " true Priests, as 
well as Baal-Priests, in our own day:" with more of the like sort. 
We select some fractions, by way of finish to this farrago. 

"Cease, my much-respected Herr von Voltaire," thus apostrophises 
the Professor : " shut thy sweet voice ; for the task appointed thee seems 
finished. Sufficiently hast thou demonstrated this proposition, consider- 
able or otherwise : That the Mythus of the Christian Religion looks not 
in the eighteenth century as it did in the eighth. Alas, were thy six- 
and-thirty quartos, and the six-and-thirty thousand other quartos and 
folios, and flying sheets or reams, printed before and since on the same 
subject, all needed to convince us of so little ! But what next ? Wilt 
thou help lis to embody the divine Spirit of that Religion in a new My- 
thus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that our Souls, otherwise too like 



86 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

perishing, may live 1 What ! thou hast no faculty in that kind ] Only 
a torch for burning, no hammer for building'? Take our thanks, then, 

and thyself away. 

" Meanwhile, what are amiquated Mythuses to me 1 Or is the God 
present, felt in my own Heart, a thing which Herr von Voltaire will 
dispute out of m_e ; or dispate into me '? To the " Worship of Sorroio''^ 
ascribe what origin and genesis thou pleasest, has not that worship ori- 
ginated, and been generated: is it not here? Feel it in thy heart, and 
then say whether it is of God ! This is Belief; all else is Opinion — for 
which latter whoso will let him worry and be worried." 
' " Neither," observes he elsewhere, "shall ye tear out one another's 
eyes, struggling over ' Plenary Inspiration,' and such like: try rather to 
get a little even Partial Inspiration, each of you for himself. One Bible 
I know, of whose Plenary Inspiration doubt is not so much as possible ; 
nay, with my own eyes I saw the God's-Hand writing it : thereof 
all other Bibles are but Leaves — sa}-, in Picture- Writing to assist the 
weaker faculty." 

Or to give the wearied reader relief, and bring it to an end, let him 
take the following perhaps more intelligible passage : 

" To me, in this our Life," says the Professor, " which is an interne- 
cine warfare with the Time-spirit, other warfare seems questionable. 
Hast thou in any way a Contention with thy brother, I advise thee, think 
well what the meaning thereof is. If thou gauge it to the bottom it is 
simply this : ' Fellow, see ! thou art taking more than thy share of Hap- 
piness in the world, something from my share : which, by the Heavens, 
thou shalt not ; nay, I will fight thee rather.' — Alas ! and the v/hole lot 
to be divided is such a beggarly matter, truly a ' feast of shells,' for the 
substance has been spilled out : not enough to quench one Appetite; and 
the collective human species clutching at them! — Can we not, in all such 
cases, rather say : 'Take it, thou too-ravenous individual; take that 
pitiful additional fraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but which 
thou so wantest ; take it Avith a blessing : would to Heaven I had enough 
for thee !' — If Fichte's Wissenschaftshhre be 'to a certain extent. Ap- 
plied Christianity,' surely to a still greater extent, so is this. We have 
here not a Whole Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely, the Passive 
half: could we but do it, as we can demonstrate it ! 

" But indeed Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless till it 
convert itself into Conduct. Nay, properly, Conviction is not possible 
till then ; inasmuch as all speculation is by nature endless, formless, a 
vortex amid vortices : only, by a felt indubitable certainty of Experience, 
does it find any centre to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a 
system. Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that ' Doubt of any 
sort cannot be removed except by Action.' On which ground too lei 
him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and piay? 
vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other prcceiil \ 
well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: 'Do the Dniyi 
I which lies nearest thee^' which thou knowest to be a Duty ! Thy second ' 
i Duty will already have become clearer. 

May we not say, however, that the hour of Spiritual Enfranchisement 
is even this : When your Ideal World, wherein the whole man has been 
dimly struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes 
revealed, and thrown open ; and you discover, with amazement enough, 
like the Lothario in Wilhehn Meister, that your ' America is here or 
nowhere ?' The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet 
occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despica- 
ble Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy 



PAUSE. 87 

Ideal : work it out therefrom ; and working, believe, live, be free. 
Fool ! the Ideal is in thyself, the Impediment too is in thyself: thy Con- 
dition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of : what 
matters whether such stufi'be of this sort or of that, so the Form thou 
give it be heroic, be poetic ? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of 
the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule 
and create, know this of a truth : the thing thou seekest is already with 
thee, ' here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see ! 

" But it is with man's Soul as it was with Nature : the beginning of 
Creation, is — Light. Till the eye have vision, the whole members are 
in bonds. Divine moment, when over the tempest-tost Soul, as once 
over the wild-weltering Chaos, it is spoken : Let there be Light ! Ever 
to the greatest that has felt such moment, is it not miraculous and God- 
announcing even as, under simpler figures, to the simplest and least ? 
The mad primeval Discord is hushed ; the r-udely-jumbled conflicting 
elements bind themselves into separate Firmaments : deep silent rock- 
foundations are built beneath ; and the skyey vault with its everlasting 
Luminaries above : instead of a dark wasteful Chaos, we have a bloom- 
ing, fertile, Heaven-encompassed World. 

" I too could now say to myself : Be no longer a Chaos, but a World, 
or even Worldkin. Produce ! Produce ! Were it but the pitifullest 
infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it in God's name ! 'Tis the 
utmost thou hast in thee ; out with it then. Up, up ! Whatsoever thy 
hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called 
To-day, for the Night cometii wherein no man can work." 



CHAPTER X. 

PAUSE. 

Thus have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily as, in such cir- 
cumstances, might be, followed Teufelsdrockh through the various 
successive states and stages of Growth, Entanglement, Unbelief, and 
almost Reprobation, into a certain clearer state of what he himself seems 
to consider as Conversion. " Blame not the word," says He ; " rejoice 
rather that such a word, signifying such a thing, has come to light in our 
Modern Era, though hidden from the wisest Ancients. The Old World 
knew nothing of Conversion : instead of an Ecce Homo, they had only 
some Choice of Hercules. It was a new-attained progress in the Moral 
Development of man : hereby has the Highest come home to the bo- 
soms of the most Limited ; what to Plato was but a hallucination, and 
to Socrates a chimera, is now clear and certain to your Zinzendorfs, your 
Wesleys, and the poorest of the Pietists and Methodists." 

It is here then that the spiritual majority of Teufelsdrockh commences : 
we are henceforth to see him "Work in Well-doing," with the spirit and 
clear aims of a Man. He has discovered that the Ideal Workshop he so 
panted for, is even this same Actual ill-furnished Workshop he has so 
long been stumbling in. He can say to himself : "Tools? Thou hast 
no Tools ? Why, there is not a Man, or a Thing, now alive but has 



88 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

Tools. The basest of created animalcules, the Spider itself, has a spin- 
ning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom, within its liead; the 
stupidest of Oj'Sters has a Papin's-Digester, with stone-and-lime house to 
hold it in ij^every being that can live can do something; this let liim 
do.^-Tools?" Hast thou not a Brain, furnished, furnishable with some 
gJimmerings of Light ; and three fingers to hold a Pen witlial ? Tv'evcr 
since Aaron's Rod went oat of practice, or even before it, was there such 
a wonder-working Tool : greater than all recorded miracles have been 
performed by Pens. For strangely in this so solid-seeming World, which 
nevertheless is in continual restless flux, it is appointed that Sound, to 
appearance the most fleeting, should be the most continuing of all things. 
The Word is well said to be omnipotent in this world; man, thereby 
divine, can create as by a Fiat. Awake, arise ! Speak forth what is in 
thee ; what God has given thee, what the Devil shall not take away. 
Higher task than that of Priesthood was allotted to no man : wert thou 
but the meanest in that sacred Hierarchy, is it not honor enough therein 
to spend and be spent ? 

" By this Art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously degrade into a handi- 
craft,^' adds Teufelsdrockh, " have I thenceforth abidden. Writings of 
mine, not indeed known as mine (for what am I ?), have fallen, perhaps 
not altogether void, into the mighty seedfield of Opinion ; fruits of my 
unseen sowing gratifyingly meet me here and there. I thank the Heavens 
that I have now found my Calling ; wherein, with or without perceptible 
result, I am minded diligently to persevere. 

" Nay, how knowest thou," cries he, " but this and the other pregnant 
Device, now grown to be a world-renowned far- working Institution ; like 
a grain of right mustard-seed once cast into the right soil, and now 
stretching out strong boughs to the four winds, for the birds of the air to 
lodge in, — may have been properly my doing ? Some one's doing it with- 
out doubt was ; from some Idea, in some single Head, it did first of all 
take beginning : why not from some Idea in mine ? " Does Teufels- 
drockh here glance at that " Society for the Conservation of Pro 
PERTY (Eigenthums-conservireoide Gesdlschaft)" of which so many am- 
biguous notices glide spectre-like through these inexpressible Paperbags ? 
" An Institution," hints he, " not unsuitable to the wants of the time ; as 
indeed such sudden extension proves : for already can the Society num- 
ber, among its office-bearers or corresponding members, the highest 
Names, if not the highest Persons, in Germany, England, France ; and 
contributions, both of money and of meditation, pour in from all quarters ; 
to, if possible, enlist the remaining Integrity of the world, and, defen- 
sively and with forethought, marshal it round this Palladium." Does 
Teufelsdrockh mean, then, to give himself out as the originator of that 
so notable Eigenthums-conservirende ("Ow-ndom conserving") (re«e//- 
schaft ; and if so, what in the Devil's name is it ? He again hints ; " At 
a time when the divine Commandment, Thou shalt not steal, wherein 
truly, if well understood, is comprised the whole Hebrew Decalogue, 
with Solon's and Lycurgus's Constitutions, Justinian's Pandects, the 
Code Napoleon, and all Codes, Catechisms, Divinities, Moralities what- 
soever, that man has hitherto devised (and enforced with Altar-fire and 
Gallows-ropes) for his social guidance : at a time, I say, when this divine 
Commandment has all but faded away from the general remembrance; 
and, with little disguise, a new opposite Commandment, Thou shalt steal, 
is everywhere promulgated, — it perhaps behoved, in this universal dotage 
and derilation, the sound portion of mankind to bestir themselves and 
rally. When the widest and wildest violations of that divine right of 



PAUSE. 89 

Property, the only divine right now extant or conceivable, are sanctioned 
and recommended by a vicious Press, and the world has lived to hear it 
asserted that ive have no Property in our very Bodies, but only an acci- 
dental Possession and Liferent, what is the issue to be looked for ? Hang- 
men and Catchpoles may, by their noose-gins and baited fall-traps, keep 
down the smaller sort of vermin : but what, except perhaps some such 
Universal Association, can protect us against whole meat-devouring and 
man-devouring hosts of Boa Constrictors ? If, therefore, the more seques- 
tered Thinker liave wondered in his privacy, from what hand that per- 
haps not ill-written Program in the Public Journals, with its high Prize- 
Questions and so liberal Prizes, could have proceeded, — let him now 
cease such wonder ; and, with undivided faculty, betake himself to the 
Concurrenz (Competition)." 

We ask : Has this same " perhaps not ill- written Program," or any 
other authentic Transaction of that Property-conserving Society, fallen 
under the eye of the British Reader, in any Journal, foreign or domestic ? 
If so, what are those Prize-Questions ; what are the terms of Competi 
tion, and when and where ? No printed Newspaper leaf, no farther 
light of any sort, to be met with in these Paperbags ! Or is the whole 
business one other of those whimsicalities, and perverse inexplicabilities, 
whereby Herr Teufelsdrockh, meaning much or nothing, is pleased so 
often to play fast and loose with us ? 

Here, indeed, at length, must the Editor give utterance to a painful 
suspicion, which, through late Chapters, has begun to haunt him ; paralys- 
ing any little enthusiasm, that might still have rendered his thorny Bio- 
graphical task a labor of love. It is a suspicion grounded perhaps on 
trifles, yet confirmed almost into certainty by the more and more discern- 
able humoristico-satirical tendency of Teufelsdrockh, in whom under- 
ground humors, and intricate sardonic rogueries, wheel within wheel, 
defy all reckoning : a suspicion, in one word, that these Auto-biographical 
Documents are partly a Mystification ! What if many a so-called Fact 
were little better than a Fiction ; if here we had no direct Camera- 
obscura Picture of the Professor's History ; but only some more or less 
fantastic Adumbration, symbolically, perhaps significantly enough, sha- 
dowing forth the same ! Our theory begins to be that, in receiving as 
literally authentic what was but hieroglyphically so, Hofrath Hensch- 
recke, whom in that case we scruple not to name Hofrath Nose-of-Wax, 
was made a fool of, and set adrift to make fools of others. Could it be 
expected, indeed, that a man so known for impenetrable reticence as 
Teufelsdrockh, would all at once frankly unlock his private citadel to an 
English Editor and a German Hofrath ; and not rather deceptively Mock 
both Editor and Hofrath, in the labyrinthic tortuosities and covered ways 
of said citadel (having enticed them thither), to see, in his half-devilish 
way, how the fools would look ? 

Of one fool, however, the Herr Professor will perhaps find himself 
short. On a small slip, formerly thrown aside as blank, the ink being 
all but invisible, we lately notice, and with efibrt decipher, the following : 
"What are your historical Facts ; still more your biographical ? Wilt 
thou know a Man, above all, a Mankind, by stringing together beadrolls 
of what thou namest Facts ? The man is the spirit he worked in ; not 
what he did, but what he became. Facts are engraved Hierograms, for 
which the fewest have the key. And then how your Blockhead (Dumrn- 
kopf) studies not their Meaning ; but simply whether they are well or ill 
cut, what he calls Moral or Immoral ! Still worse is it with your Bungler 
(^Pjfusch&r) : such I have seen reading some Rousseau, with pretences of 
8* 



90 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

interpretation ; and mistaking the ill-cut Serpent of Eternity for a common 
poisonous Reptile." Was the Professor apprehensive lest an Editor, 
selected as the present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdrockh 
Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner ? For which reason it was to be alter- 
ed, not without underhand satire, into a plainer Symbol ? Or is this 
merely one of his half-sophisms, half-truisms, which if he can but set on 
the back of a Figure, he cares not whither it gallop ? We say not with 
certainty ; and indeed, so strange is the Professor, can never say. If 
our Suspicion be wholly unfounded, let his own questionable ways, not 
our necessary circumspectness, bear the blame. 

But be this as it will, the somewhat exasperated and indeed exhausted 
Editor determines here to shut these Paperbags for the present. Let it 
suffice that we know of Teufelsdrockh, so far, if, " not what he did, yet 
what he became :" the rather, as his character has now taken its ulti- 
mate bent, and no new revolution, of importance, is to be looked for. 
The imprisoned Chrysalis is now a winged Psyche ; and such, where- 
soever be its flight, it will continue. To trace by what complex gyra- 
tions (flights or involuntary waftings) through the mere external Life- 
element, Teufelsdrockh reaches his University Professorship, and the 
Psyche clothes herself in civic Titles, without altering her now fixed 
nature, — would be comparatively an unproductive task ; were we even 
unsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a false and impossible one. His 
outward Biography, therefore, which, at the Blumine Lover's Leap, we 
saw churned into spray-vapor, may hover in that condition, for aught 
that concerns us here. Enough that by survey of certain " pools and 
plashes," we have ascertained its general direction : do we not already 
know that, by one way and other, it has long since rained down again 
into a stream ; and even now, at Weissnichtwo, flows deep and still, 
fraught with the Philosophy of Clothes, and visible to whoso will cast 
eye thereon ? Over much invaluable matter that lies scattered, like 
j'^wels among quarry-rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs, we may have 
occasion to glance back, and somewhat will demand insertion at the 
right place : meanwhile be our toilsome diggings therein suspended. 

If now, before re-opening the great CZo^Aes-Fb/wTne, we ask what our 
degree of progress, during these Ten Chapters, has been, towards right 
understanding of the Clothes -Philosophy, let not our discouragement 
become total. To speak in that old figure of the Hell-gate Bridge over 
Chaos, a few flying pontoons have perhaps been added, though as yet 
they drift straggling on the Flood ; how far they will reach, when once 
the chains are straightened and fastened, can, at present, only be matter 
of conjecture. 

So much we already calculate. Through many a little loophole, we 
have had glimpses into the internal world of Teufelsdrockh : his strange 
mystic, almost magic Diagram of the Universe, and how it was gradually 
drawn, is not henceforth altogether dark to us. Those mysterious ideas 
on Time, which merit consideration, and are not wholly unintelligible 
with such, may by and by prove significant. Still more may his some- 
what peculiar view of Nature ; the decisive Oneness he ascribes to 
Nature. How all Nature and Life are but one Garment, a " Living 
Garment," woven and ever a-weaving in the " Loom of Time : " is not 
liere, indeed, the outline of a whole Clothes Philosophy ; at least the 
arena it is to work in ? Remark too that the Character of the man, 
nowise without meaning in such a matter, becomes less enigmatic : amid 
so much tumultuous obscurity, almost like diluted madness, do not a 
certain indomitable Defiance and yet a boundless Reverence seem to 



PAUSE. 91 

loom forth as the two moimtain summits, on whose rock-strata all the 
rest were based and built ? 

Nay, further, may we not say that Teufelsdrockh's Biography, allowing 
it even, as suspected, only a hieroglyphical truth, exhibits a man, as i^t 
were preappointed for Clothes-Philosophy ? To look through the Shows 
of things into Things themselves he is led and compelled. The " Pas- 
sivity" given him by birth is fostered by all turns of his fortune. Every- 
where cast out, like oil out of water, from mingling in any Employment, 
in any public Communion, he has no portion but Solitude, and a life of 
Meditation. The whole energy of his existence is directed, through lon^- 
years, on one task : that of enduring pain, if he cannot cure it. Thus 
everywhere do the Shows of things oppress him, withstand him, threaten 
him with fearfullest destruction : only by victoriously penetrating into 
Things themselves can he find peace and a stronghold. But is not this 
same looking through the Shows or Vestures into the Things even the 
first preliminary to a Philosophy of Clothes ? Do we not, in all this, dis- 
cern some beckonings towards the true higher purport of such a Philoso- 
phy ; and what shape it must assume with such a man, in such an era ? 

Perhaps in entering on Book Third, the courteous Reader is not utterly 
without guess whither he is bound : nor, let us hope, for all the fantastic 
Dream-Grottoes through which, as is our lot with Teufelsdrdckh, he 
must wander, will there be wanting between whiles some twinkling of a 
steady Polar Star. 



92 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

BOOK III. 

CHAPTER I. 

INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 

As a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, Teufelsdrockh, from an 
early part of this Clothes- Volume, has more and more exhibited himself. 
Striking it was, amid all his perverse cloudiness, with what force 
of vision and of heart he pierced into the mystery of the World ; recogniz- 
ing in the highest sensible phenomena, so far as Sense went, only fresh 
or faded Raiment ; yet ever, under this, a celestial Essence thereby ren- 
dered visible : and while, on the one hand, he trod the old rags of Mat- 
ter, with their tinsels, into the mire, he on the other everywhere exalted 
Spirit above all earthly principalities and powers, and worshipped it, 
though under the meanest shapes, with a true Platonic Mysticism. 
What the man ultimately purposed by thus casting his Greek-fire into 
the general Wardrobe of the Universe ; what such, more or less complete, 
rending and burning of Garments throughout the whole compass of Civil- 
ized Life and Speculation, should lead to ; the rather as he was no Ada- 
mite, in any sense, and could not, like Rousseau, recommend either 
bodily or intellectual Nudity, and a return to the savage state ; all this our 
readers are now bent to discover ; this is, in fact, properly the gist and 
purport of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Philosophy of Clothes. 

Be it remembered, however, that such purport is here not so much 
evolved as detected to lie ready for evolving. We are to guide our 
British Friends into the new Gold-country, and show them the mines ; 
nowise to dig out and exhaust its wealth, which indeed remains for all 
time inexhaustible. Once there, let each dig for his own behoof, and 
enrich himself. 

Neither, in so capricious inexpressible a Work as this of the Profes- 
sor's, can our course now more than formerly be straightforward, step by 
step, but at best leap by leap. Significant Indications stand out here and 
there ; which for the critical eye, that looks both widely and narrowly, 
shape themselves into some ground-scheme of a Whole : to select these 
with judgment, so that a leap from one to the other be possible, and (in 
our old figure) by chaining them together, a passable Bridge be eflected : 
this as heretofore continues our only method. Among such light-spots, 
the following, floating in much wild matter about Perfectibility, has 
seemed worth clutching at : 

" Perhaps the most remarkable incident in Modern History," says 
Teufelsdrockh, "is not the Diet of Worms, still less the Battle of Auster- 
litz, Waterloo, Peterloo, or any other Battle; but an incident passed 
carelessly over by most Historians, and treated with some degree of ridi- 
cule by others : namely, George Fox's making to himself a Suit of Lea- 
ther. This man, the first of the Quakers, and by trade a Shoemaker, was 
one of those, to whom, under ruder or purer form, the Divine Idea of the 
Universe is pleased to manifest itself; and, across all the hulls of Igno- 
rance and earthly Degradation, shine through, in unspeakable Awfulness, 
unspeakable Beauty, on their souls : who therefore are rightly accounted 
Prophets, God-possessed ; or even Gods, as in some periods it has chanc- 
ed. Sitting in his stall ; working on tanned hides, amid pincers, paste- 
horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a nameless flood of rubbish, this youth 
had nevertheless a Living Spirit belonging to him; also an antique 



INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY 93 

Inspired Volume, through which, as through a window, it could look up- 
wards, and discern its celestial Home. The task of a daily pair of shoes, 
coupled even with some prospect of victuals, and an honorable Master- 
ship in Cordwainery, and perhaps the post of Thirdborough in his Hun- 
dred, as the crown of long faithful sewing, — was nowise satisfaction 
enough to such a mind : but ever amid the boring and hammering came 
tones from that far country, came Splendors and Terrors ; for this poor 
Cordwainer, as we said, was a Man ; and the Temple of Immensity, where- 
in as Man he had been sent to minister, was full of holy mystery to him. 

" The Clergy of the neighborhood, the ordained Watchers and Inter- 
preters of that same holy mystery, listened with unaffected tedium to his 
consultations, and advised him, as the solution of such doubts, to " drink 
beer, and dance with the girls." Blind leaders of the blind ! For what 
end were their tithes levied and eaten ; for what were their shovel-hats 
scooped out, and their surplices and cassock-aprons girt on ; and such a 
church-repairing, and chaffering, and organing, and other racketting, 
held over that spot of God's Earth, — if Man were but a Patent Digester, 
and the Belly with its adjuncts the grand Reality ? Fox turned from 
them, with tears and a sacred scorn, back to his Leather-parings and his 
Bible. Mountains of encumbrance, higher than ^Etna, had been heaped 
over that Spirit : but it was a Spirit, and would not lie buried there. 
Through long days and nights of silent agony, it struggled and wrestled, 
with a man's force, to be free : how its prison-mountains heaved and 
swayed tumultuously, as the giant spirit shook them to this hand and that, 
and emerged into the light of Heaven ! That Leicester shoe-shop, had 
men known it, was a holier place than any Vatican or Loretto-shrine. — 
'' So bandaged, and hampered, and hemmed in," groaned he, " with thou- 
sand requisitions, obligations, straps, tatters, and tagrags, I can neither 
see nor move : not my own am I, but the World's ; and Time flies fast, 
and Heaven is high, and Hell is deep : Man ! bethink thee, if though hast 
power of thought ! Why not ; what binds me here ? Want ! Want ! — 
Ha, of what ? Will all the shoe-wages under the Moon ferry me across 
into that far Land of Light ? Only Meditation can, and devout Prayer 
to God. I will to the woods : the hollow of a tree will lodge me, wild 
berries feed me ; and for Clothes, cannot I stitch myself one perennial Suit 
of Leather !" 

" Historical Oil-painting," continues Teufelsdrockh, " is one of the Arts 
I never practised ; therefore shall I not decide whether this subject were 
easy of execution on the canvass. Yet often has it seemed to me as if 
such first outflashing of man's Freewill, to lighten, more and more into 
Day, the Chaotic Night that threatened to engulf him in its hindrances 
and its horrors, were properly the only grandeur there is in History. 
Let some living Angelo or Rosa, with seeing eye and understanding 
heart, picture George Fox on that morning, when he spreads out his cut- 
ting-board for the last time, and cuts cow-hides by unwonted patterns, 
and stitches them together into one continuous all-including Case, the 
farewell service of his awl ! Stitch away, thou noble Fox : every prick 
of that little instrument is pricking into the heart of Slavery, and World- 
worship, and the Mammon-god. Thy elbows jerk, as in strong swimmer- 
strokes, and every stroke is bearing thee across the Prison-ditch, within 
which Vanity holds her Work-house and Rag-fair, into lands of true 
Liberty ; were the work done, there is in broad Europe one Free Man, 
and thou art he ! 

Thus from the lowest depth there is a path to the loftiest height : and 
for the Poor also a Gospel has been published. Surely, if, as D'Alem- 
bert asserts, my illustrious namesake, Diogenes, was the greatest man of 
Antiquity, only that he wanted Decency, then by stronger reason iSr 



94 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

George Fox the greatest of the Moderns ; and greater than Diogenes 
himself: for he too stands on the adamantine basis of his Manhood, cast- 
ing aside all props and shoars ; yet not, in half-savage Pride, undervalu- 
ing the Earth ; valuing it rather, as a place to yield him warmth and 
food, he looks Heavenward from his Earth, and dwells in an element of 
Mercy and Worship, with a still Strength, such as the Cynic's Tub did 
nowise witness. Great, truly, was that Tub ; a temple from which man's 
dignity and divinity was scornfully preached abroad : but greater is the 
Leather Hull, for the same sermon was preached there, and not in Scorn 
but in Love." 

George Fox's " perennial suit," with all that it held, has been worn' 
quite into ashes for nigh two centuries : why, in a discussion on the 
Perfectibility of Society, reproduce it now ? Not out of blind sectarian 
partisanship : Teufelsdrockh himsfelf is no Quaker ; with all his pacific 
tendencies, did we not see him, in that scene at the North Cape, wath 
the Archangel Smuggler, exhibit fire-arms ? 

For us, aware of his deep Sansculottism, there is more meant in this 
passage than meets the ear. At the same time, who can avoid smiling 
at the earnestness and Boeotian simplicity (if indeed there be not an 
underhand satire in it), with which that " Incident" is here brought for- 
ward ; and, in the Professor's ambiguous way, as clearly perhaps as he 
durst in Weissnichtwo, recommended to imitation ! Does Teufelsdrockh 
anticipate that, in this age of refinement, any considerable class of the 
community, by way of testifying against the " Mammon-god," and escap- 
ing from what he calls " Vanity's Workhouse and Ragfair," where 
doubtless some of them are toiled and whipped and hoodwinked suffi- 
ciently, — will sheathe themselves in close-fitting cases of Leather ? The 
idea is ridiculous in the extreme. Will Majesty lay aside its robes of 
state, and Beauty its frills and train-gowns, for a second skin of tanned 
hide ? By which change Huddersfield and Manchester, and Coventry 
and Paisley, and the Fancy-Bazaar, were reduced to hungry solitudes; 
and only Day and Martin could profit. For neither would Teufels- 
drockh's mad daydream, here as we presume covertly intended, of level- 
ling Society (levelling it indeed with a vengeance, into one huge drowned 
marsh !), and so attaining the political effects of Nudity withovit its 
frigorific or other consequences, — be thereby realised. Would not the 
rich man purchase a waterproof suit of Russian Leather ; and the high- 
born Belle step forth in red or azure morocco, lined with shamoy : the 
"black cowhide being left to the Drudges and Gibeonites of the world ; 
and so all the old Distinctions re-established ? 

Or has the Professor his own deeper intention ; and laughs in his 
sleeve at our strictures and glosses, which indeed are but a part thereof? 



CHAPTER II. 



CHURCH CLOTHES. 



Not less questionable is his Chapter on Church Clothes, which has the 
farther distinction of being the shortest in the Volume. We here trans- 
late it entire : 

" By Church Clothes, it need not be premised, that I mean infinitely 
more than Cassocks and Surplices ; and do not at all mean the mere hab- 
erdasher Sunday Clothes that men go to Church in. Far from it ! 
Church Clothes are, in our vocabulary, the Forms, the Vestures, under 
which men have at various periods embodied and represented for them- 
selves the Religious Principle ; that is to say, invested the Divine Idea 



CHURCH CLOTHES. 95 

of the World with a sensible and practically active Body, so that it might 
dwell among them as a living and life-giving Word. 

These are unspeakably the most important of all the vestures and 
garnitures of Human Existence. They are first spun and woven, I may 
say, by that wonder of wonders, Society ; for it is still only when " two 
or three are gathered together" that Religion, spiritually existent, and 
indeed indestructible however latent, in each, first outwardly manifests 
itself (as with " cloven tongues of fire") and seeks to be embodied in a 
visible Communion, and Church Militant. Mystical, more than magical, 
is that Communing of Soul with Soul, both looking heavenward : here 
properly Soul first speaks with Soul ; for only in looking heavenward, 
lake it in what sense you may, not in looking earthward, does what we 
can call Union, mutual Love, Society, begin to be possible. How true is 
that of Novalis : " It is certain, my Belief gains quite infinitely the 
moment I can convince another mind thereof !" Gaze thou in the face 
of thy Brother, in those eyes where plays the lambent fire of Kindness, or 
in those where rages the lurid conflagration of Anger ; feel how thy own 
so quiet Soul is straightway involuntarily kindled with the like, and ye 
blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is all one limitless confluent 
flame (of embracing Love, or of deadly-grappling Hate) ; and then say 
what miraculous virtue goes out of man into man. But if so, through 
all the thick-plied hulls of our Earthly Life ; how much more when it is 
of the Divine Life we speak, and inmost Me is, as it were, brought into 
contact with inmost Me ! 

Thus was it that I said, the Church Clothes are first spun and woven 
by Society; outward Religion originates by Society, Society becomes 
possible by Religion. Nay, perhaps every conceivable Society, past and 
present, may well be figured as properly and wholly a Church, in one or 
other of these three predicaments : an audibly preaching and prophesy- 
ing Church, which is the best ; second, a Church that struggles to x>reach 
and prophesy, but cannot as yet, till its Pentecost come ; and third and 
worst, a Church gone dumb with old age, or which only mumbles deli- 
rium prior to dissolution. Whoso fancies that by Church is here meant 
Chapterhouses and Cathedrals, or by preaching and prophes}dng, mere 
speech and chanting, let him, sajs the oracular Professor, read on, 
light of heart (getrosten Muthes). 

But with regard to your Church proper, and the Church Clothes spe- 
cially recognized as Church Clothes, I remark, fearlessly enough, that 
without such Vestures and sacred Tissues Society has not existed, and 
will not exist. For if Government is, so to speak, the outward skin of 
the Body Politic, holding the whole together and protecting it ; and all 
your Craft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of band or of bead, are 
the Fleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tissues (lying ander such 
skin), whereby Society stands and works ; — then is Religion the inmost 
Pericai'dial and Nervous Tissue, which ministers Life and warm Circula- 
tion to the whole. Without which Pericardial Tissue the Bones and 
Muscles (of Industry) were inert, or animated only by a Galvanic vital- 
ity ; the SKIN would become a shrivelled pelt, or fast-rotting raw-hide ; 
and Society itself a dead carcass, — deserving to be buried. Men were 
no longer Social, but Gregarious ; which latter state also could not con- 
tinue, but must gradually issue in universal selfish discord, hatred, savage 
isolation, and dispersion ; — whereby, as we might continue to say, the 
very dust and dead body of Society would have evaporated and become 
abolished. Such, and so all-important, all-sustaining, are the Church 
Clothes, to civilized or even to rational man. 

Meanwhile, in our era of the World, those same Church Clothes have 
gone sorrowfully out at elbows : nay, far worse, many of them have 
9 



96 



SARTOR EESARTUS. 



become mere hollow Shapes, or Masks, under which no living Figure or 
Spirit any longer dwells ; but only spiders and unclean beetles, in horrid 
accumulation, drive their trade ; and the Mask still glares on you with 
its glass-eyes, in ghastly affectation of Life — some generation and half 
after Religion has quite withdrawn from it, and in unnoticed nooks is 
weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewith to reappear, and bless us, 
or our sons or grandsons. As a Priest, or Interpreter of the Holy, is the 
noblest and highest of all men, so is a Shampriest (Scheinpriester) the 
falsest and basest : neither is it doubtful that his Canonicals, were they 
Popes' Tiaras, will one day be torn from him, to make bandages for the 
wounds of mankind ; or even to burn into tinder, for general scientific or 
culinary purposes. 

All which, as out of place here, falls to be handled in my Second Vol- 
ume, On the Palingemsia, or Neiv-birth of Society ; which volume, as 
treating practically of the Wear, Destruction, and Re-texture of Spiritual 
Tissues or Garments, forms, properly speaking, the Transcendental or 
ultimate Portion of this my Work on Clothes, and is already in a state of 
forwardness." 

And herewith, no farther exposition, note, or commentary being 
added, does Teufelsdrockh, and must his Editor now, terminate the sin- 
gular Chapter on Church Clothes ! 



CHAPTER III. 



SYMBOLS. 



Probably it will elucidate the drift of these foregoing obscure utter- 
ances, if we here insert somewhat of our Professor's speculations on 
Symbols. To state his whole doctrine, indeed, were bej'ond our com- 
pass : nowhere is he more mysterious, impalpable, than in this of " Fan- 
tasy being the organ of the Godlike;" and how " Man thereby, though 
based, to all seeming, on the small Visible, does nevertheless extend 
down into the infinite deeps of the Invisible, of which Invisible, indeed, 
his Life is properly the bodying forth." Let us, omitting these hi-jh 
transcendental aspects of the matter, study to glean (whether from the 
Paperbags or the Printed Volume) what little seems logical and practi- 
cal, and cunningly arrange it into such degree of coherence as it will as- 
sume. By way of proem, take the following not injudicious remarks : 

" The benignant efficacies of Concealment," cries our Professor, " who 
shall speak or sing ? Silence and Secresy ! Altars might still be raised 
to them (were this an altar-building time) for universal worship. 
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together ; 
that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the day- 
light of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Not William the 
Silent only, but all the considerable men I have known, and the most un- 
diplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore to babble of what they were 
creating and projecting. Najr, in thy own mean perplexities, do thou 
thyself but hold thy tongue for one day : on the morrow, how much clearer 
are thy purposes, and duties ; what wreck and rubbish have those mute 
workmen within thee swept away, when intrusive noises were shut out ! 
Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of concealing 
Thought ; but of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is 
none to conceal. Speech too is great, but not the greatest. As the 
Swiss Inscription says : Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden (Speech 
is silvern, Silence is golden) ; or as I might rather express it : Speech is 
of Time, Silence is of Eternity. 



.iVMBOLS. 97 

•' Bees will not work except in darkness ; Thought will not work ex 
cept in Silence : neither will Virtue work except in Secresy. Let not thy 
right hand know what thy left hand doeth ! Neither shall thou prate 
even to thy own heart of ' those secrets known to all.' Is not Shame 
the soil of all Virtue, of all good manners, and good morals ? Like other 
plants, Virtue will not grow unless its root be hidden, buried from the eye 
of the sun. Let the sun shine on it, nay, do but look at it privily thy- 
self, the root withers, and no flower will glad thee. O my Friends, when 
we view the fair clustering flowers that over- wreathe, for example, the 
Marriage-bower, and encircle man's life with the fragrance and hues of 
Heaven, what hand will not smite the foul plunderer that grubs them up 
by the roots, and, with grinning, grunting satisfaction, shows us the dung 
they flourish in ! Men speak much of the Printing Press with its News- 
papers : du Himmel ! what are these to Clothes and the Tailor's Goose ?" 

" Of kin to the so incalculable influences of Concealment, and con- 
nected with still greater things, is the wondrous agency of Symbols. In 
a Symbol there is concealment and yet revelation : here, therefore, 
by Silence and by Speech acting together, comes a doubled significance 
And if both the Speech be itself high, and the Silence fit and noble, how 
expressive will their union be ! Thus in many a painted Device, or sim- j 
pie Seal-emblem, the commonest Truth stands out to us proclaimed with 
quite new emphasis. 

" For it is here that Fantasy with her mystic wonder-land plays into 
the small prose domain of Sense, and becomes incorporated therewith. 
In the Symbol proper, what we can call a Symbol, there is ever, more or 
less distinctly and directly, some embodyment and revelation of the Infi- 
nite ; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, 
and as it were, attainable there. By Symbols, accordingly, is man guided 
and commanded, made happy, made wretched. He everywhere finds 
himself encompassed with Symbols, recognized as such or not recognized : 
the Universe is but one vast Symbol of God ; nay, if thou wilt have it, 
what is man himself but a Symbol of God ; is not all that he does symbo- 
lical ; a revelation to Sense of the mystic god-given Force that is in him ; 
a ' Gospel of Freedom,' which he, the ' Messias of Nature,' preaches, 
as he can, by act and word ? Not a Hut he builds but is the visible em- 
bodyment of a Thought ; but bears visible record of invisible things ; but 
is, in the transcendental sense, symbolical as well as real." 

" Man," says the Professor elsewhere, in quite antipodal contrast with 
these high-soaring delineations, which we have here cut short on the 
verge of the inane, " man is by birth somewhat of an owl. Perhaps too 
of all the owleries that ever possessed him, the most owlish, if we consi- 
der it, is that of your actually existing Motive-Millwrights. Fantastic 
tricks enough has man played in his time ; has fancied himself to be most 
things, down even to an animated heap of Glass : but to fancy himself a 
dead Iron-Balance for weighing Pains and Pleasures on, was reserved for 
this his latter era. There stands he, his Universe one huge Manger, 
filled with hay and thistles to be weighed against each other; and looks 
long-eared enough. Alas, poor devil ! spectres are appointed to haunt 
him : one age, he is hagridden, bewitched ; the next, priestridden, befool- 
ed ; in all ages, bedevilled. And now the Genius of Mechanism smothers 
him worse than any Nightmare did ; till the Soul is nigh choked out of 
him, and only a kind of Digestive, Mechanic life remains. In Earth and 
in Heaven he can see nothing but Mechanism ; has fear for nothing else, 
hope in nothing else : the world would indeed grind him to pieces ; but 
cannot he fathom the Doctrine of Motives, and cunningly compute these, 
and mechanize them to grind the other way ? 

" Were he not, as has been said, purblinded by enchantment, you had 
9 



98 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

but to bid him open his eyes and look. In which country, in which 
time, was it hitherto that man's history, or the history of any man, went 
on by calculated or calculable " Motives ?" What make ye of your 
Christianities, and Chivalries, and Reformations, and Marseillaise Hymns, 
and Reigns of Terror ? Nay, has not perhaps the Motive-grinder him- 
self been in Love ! Did he never stand so much as a contested Election i 
Leave him to Time, and the medicating virtue of Nature ? 

"■ Yes, Friends," elsewhere observes the Professor, " not our Logical, 
Mensurative faculty, but our Imaginative one is King over us; I might 
say. Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward ; or Magician and Wizard 
to lead us hellward. Nay, even for the basest Sensualist, what is Sense 
but the implement of Fantasy; the vessel it drinks out of? Ever in the 
dullest existence, there is a sheen either of Inspiration or of Madness (thou 
partly hast it in thy choice, which of the two) that gleams in from the 
circumambient Eternity, and colors with its own hues our little islet of 
Time. The Understanding is indeed thy window, too clear thou canst 
not make it ; but Fantasy is thy eye, with its color-giving retina, healthy 
or diseased. Have not I myself known five hundred living soldiers 
sabred into crows' meat, for a piece of glazed cotton, which they called 
their Flag ; which, had you sold it in any market-cross, would not have 
brought above three groschen ? Did not the whole Hungarian Nation 
rise, like some tumultuous moon-stirred Atlantic, when Kaiser Joseph 
pocketed their Iron Crown ; an implement, as was sagaciously observed, 
in size and commercial value, little differing from a horse-shoe ? It is in 
and through Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, 
and has his being : those ages, moreover, are accounted the noblest 
which can the best recognize symbolical worth, and prize it the highest. 
For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or 
clearer revelation of the Godlike ? 

" Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that they have both an ex- 
trinsic and intrinsic value ; oftenest the former ®nly. What, for instance, 
was in that clouted Shoe, which the Peasants bore aloft with them as 
ensign in their Bauernkrieg (Peasants' War) ? Or in the Wallet-and- 
Staff round which the Netherland Gueux, glorying in that nickname of 
Beggars, heroically rallied and prevailed, though against King Philip 
himself ? Intrinsic significance these had none : only extrinsic : as the 
accidental Standards of multitudes more or less sacredly uniting together ; 
in which union itself, as above noted, there is ever something mystical 
and borrowing of the Godlike. Under a like category, too, stand, or 
stood, the stupidest heraldic Coats-of-arms ; military Banners every- 
where ; and generally all national or other sectarian Costumes and Cus- 
toms; they have no intrinsic, necessary divineness, or even worth ; but 
have acquired an extrinsic one. Nevertheless through all these there 
glimmers something of a Divine Idea ; as through military Banners 
themselves, the Divine Idea of Duty, of heroic Daring ; in some instances 
of Freedom, of Right. Nay, the highest ensign that man ever met and 
embraced under, the Cross itself, had no meaning save an accidental ex- 
trinsic one. 

" Another matter it is, however, when your Symbol has intrinsic mean- 
ing, and is of iiself fit that men should unite round it. Let but the God- 
like manifest itself to Sense ; let but Eternity look, more or less visibly, 
through the Time-Figure (Zeitbild) ! Then is it fit that men unite there ; 
and worship together before such Symbol ; and so from day to day, and 
from age to age, superadd to it new divineness. 

" Of this latter sort are all true Works of Art : in them (if thou know 
a Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity look- 
ing through Time ; the Godlike rendered visible. Here too may an ex- 



SYMBOLS. ' 99 

trinsic value gradually superadd itself: thus certain Iliads, and the like, 
have, in three thousand years, attained quite new significance. But 
nobler than all in this kind are the Lives of heroic, god-inspired Men ; 
for what other Work of Art is so divine ? In Death too, in the Death of 
the Just, as the last perfection of a Work of Art, may we not discern 
symbolic meaning ? In that divinely transfigured Sleep, as of Victory, 
resting over the beloved face which now knows thee no more, read (if 
thou canst for tears) the confluence of Time with Eternity, and some 
gleam of the latter peering through. 

" Highest of all Symbols are those wherein the Artist or Poet has risen 
into Prophet, and all men can recognize a present God, and worship the 
same : I mean religious Symbols. Various enough have been such 
religious Symbols, what we call Religions ; as men stood in this stage of 
culture or the other, and could worse or better body forth the Godlike : 
some Symbols with a transient intrinsic worth ; many with only an ex- 
trinsic. If thou ask to what height man has carried it in this matter, 
look on our divinest Symbol : on Jesus of Nazareth, and his Life, and his 
Biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has the human 
Thought not yet reached : this is Christianity and Christendom ; a 
Symbol of quite perennial, infinite character ; whose significance will 
ever demand to be anew inquired into, and anew made manifest. 

" But, on the whole, as Time adds much to the sacredness of Symbols, 
so likewise in his progress he at length defaces, or even desecrates them ; 
and Symbols, like all terrestrial Garments, wax old. Homer's Epos has 
not ceased to be true ; yet it is no longer our Epos, but shines in the 
distance, if clearer and clearer, yet also smaller and smaller, a receding 
Star. It needs a scientific telescope, it needs to be reinterpreted and 
artificially brought near us, before we can so much as know that it was 
a Sun. So likewise a day comes when the Runic Thor, with his Eddas, 
must withdraw into dimness; and many an African Mumbo-Jumbo, and 
Indian Wau-Wau be utterly abolished. For all things, even Celestial 
Luminaries, much more atmospheric meteors, have their rise, their 
culmination, their decline." 

" Small is this which thou tellest me that the Royal Sceptre is but a 
piece of gilt-wood ; that the Pyx has become a most foolish box, and 
truly, as Ancient Pistol thought, " of little price." A right Conjuror 
might I name thee, couldst thou conjure back into these wooden tools the 
divine virtue they once held." 

" Of this thing however be certain : wouldst thou plant for Eternity, 
then plant into the deep infinite lacukies of man, his Fantasy and Heart; 
wouldst thou plant for Year and Day, then plant into his shallow 
superficial faculties, his Self-love and Arithmetical Understanding, what 
will grow there. A Hierarch, therefore, and Pontiff of the World will 
we call him, the Poet and inspired Maker ; who, Prometheus-like, can 
shape new Symbols, and bring new Fire from Heaven to fix it there. 
Such too will not always be wanting ; neither perhaps now are. Mean 
while, as the average of matters goes, we account him Legislator and 
wise who can so much as tell when a Symbol has grown old, and gently 
remove it. 

When, as the last English Coronation* was preparing, concludes this 
wonderful Professor, I read in their Newspapers that the " Champion of 
England," he who must ofler battle to the Universe for his new King, 
had brought it so far that he could now '■^ mount his horse with little 
assistance," I said to myself: Here also we have a Symbol well nigh 
superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters 



LofC. 



* That of George IV.— Ed 



100 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

and rags of superannuated worn-out Symbols (in this Ragfair of a World) 
dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you ; nay, if 
you shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and perhaps pro- 
duce suffocation." 



CHAPTER IV. 



HELOTAGE. 



At this point we determine on adverting shortly, or rather reverting, 
to a certain Tract of Hofrath Heuschrecke's, entitled Institute for the 
Repression of Population ; which lies, dishonorably enough (with torn 
leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic drugs), stuffed into the Bag 
Pisces, Not indeed for the sake of the Tract itself, which we admire 
little ; but of the marginal Notes, evidently in Teufelsdrockh's hand, 
which rather copiously fringe it. A few of these may be in their right 
place here. 

Into the Hofrath's Institute, with its extraordinary schemes, and 
machinery of Corresponding Boards and the like, we shall not so much 
as glance. Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a disciple 
of Malthus ; and so zealous for the doctrine, that his zeal almost literally 
eats him up. A deadly fear of Population possesses the Hofrath ; some- 
thing like a fixed-idea ; undoubtedly akin to the more diluted forms of 
Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter of his intellectual world, is there 
light; nothing but a grim shadow of Hunger; open mouths opening 
wider and wider ; a world to terminate by the frightfullest consumma- 
tion : by its too dense inhabitants, famished into delirium, universally 
eating one another. To make air for himself in which strangulation, 
choking enough to a benevolent heart, the Hofrath founds, or proposes 
to found, this Institute of his, as the best he can do. It is only with our 
Professor's comments thereon that we concern ourselves. 

First, then, remark that Teufelsdrockh, as a speculative Radical, has 
his own notions about human dignity ; that the Zahdarm palaces and 
courtesies have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. On 
the blank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract, we find the following indis- 
tinctly engrossed : 

" Two men I honor, and no third. First, the toilworn Craftsman 
that with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and 
makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard Hand ; crooked, coarse ; 
wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of 
the Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all weather- 
tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence ; for it is the face of a Man 
living manlike. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even 
because we must pity as well as love thee ! Hardly-entreated Brother I 
For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers 
so deformed : thou wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting 
our battles wert so marred. For in thee too lay a god-created Form, but 
it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with the thick 
adhesions and defacements of Labor ; and thy body like thy soul was 
not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on : thou art in thy duty, be out 
of it who may ; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily 
bread. 

" A second man I honor, and still more highly : Him who is seen 
toiling for the spiritually indispensable ; not daily bread, but the Bread of 
Life. Is not he too in his duty ; endeavoring towards inward Harmony ; 
revealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavors, be 



HELOTAGE. 101 

they high or low ? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward 
endeavor are one : when we can name him Artist ; not earthly Crafts- 
man only, but inspired Thinker, that with heaven-made Implement con- 
quers Heaven for us ! If the poor and humble toil that we have Food, 
must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have Light, 
have Guidance, Freedom, Immortality ? — These two, in all their degrees, 
I honor : all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it 
listeth. 

"Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities 
united ; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is 
also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I no- 
thing than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. 
Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the 
splendor of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like 
a light shining in great darkness." 

And again : "' It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor : 
we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which is 
worse ; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is 
hungry and athirst, but for him also there is food and drink : he is 
heavy-laden and weary ; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of 
the deepest ; in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Eest envelopes 
him, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted Dreams. But what I do mourn 
over is that the lamp of his soul should go out ; that no ray of heavenly, 
or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him ; but, only in the haggard 
darkness, like two spectres, Fear and Indignation. Alas, while the Body 
stands so broad and brawny, must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupified, 
almost annihilated ! Alas, was this too a Breath of God : bestowed in 
Heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded ! — That there should one 
Man die Ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy, 
were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by some 
computations it does. The miserable fraction of Science which united 
mankind in a wide Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why is not this, 
with all diligence, imparted to all ?" 

Quite in an opposite strain is the following : "The old Spartans had a 
wiser method ; and went out and hunted down their Helots, and speared 
and spitted them, when they grew too numerous. With our improved 
fashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, now after the invention of fire-arms, 
and standing armies, how much easier were such a hunt ! Perhaps in 
the most thickly-peopled country, some three days annually might suffice 
to shoot all the able-bodied Paupers that had accumulated within the 
year. Let Governments think of this. The expense were trifling : nay, 
the very carcasses would pay it. Have them salted and barrelled ; could 
not you victual therewith, if not Army and Navy, yet richly such infirm 
Paupers, in work-houses and elsewhere, as enlightened Charity, dreading 
no evil of them, might see good to keep alive 1" 

" And yet," writes he farther on, " there must be something wrong. 
A full-formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as high as 
two hundred Friedrichs d'or : such is his worth to the world. A full- 
formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world could 
afford him a round sum would he simply engage to go and hang himself. 
Nevertheless, which of the two was the more cunningly-devised article, 
even as an Engine ? Good Heavens ! A white European Man, standing 
on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his shackle-bones, 
and miraculous Head on his shoulders, is worth, I should say, from fifty 
to a hundred Horses !" 

" True, thou Gold-Hofrath," cries the Professor elsewhere : " too 
crowded indeed! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable 
9* 



102 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

terraqueous Globe have ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no 
more ? How thick stands your Population in the Pampas and Savannas 
of America ; round ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa ; on 
both slopes of the Altaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia ; in Spain, 
Greece, Turkey, Grim Tartarj^, the Curragh of Kildare ? One man, in 
one year, as I have understood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed him- 
self and nine others. Alas, where now are the Hengsts and Alarics of 
our still glowing, still expanding Europe ; who, when their home is grown 
too narrow, will enlist and, like Firepillars, guide onwards those super- 
fluous masses of indomitable living Valour; equipped, not now with the 
battle-axe and war-chariot, but with the steam-engine and ploughshare ? 
—Where are they ? — Preserving their Game !" 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PHCENIX. 

Putting which four singular Chapters together, and alongside of them 
numerous hints, and even direct utterances, scattered over these Writings 
of his, we come upon the startling yet not quite unlooked-for conclusion, 
that Teufelsdrockh is one of those who consider Society, properly so 
called, to be as good as extinct ; and that only the Gregarious feelings, 
and old inherited habitudes, at this juncture, hold us from Dispersion, 
and universal national, civil, domestic and personal war ! He says ex- 
pressly : " For the last three centuries, above all, for the last three 
quarters of a century, that same Peri-cardial Nervous Tissue (as we 
named it) of Religion, where lies the Life-essence of Society, has been 
smote at and perforated, needfully and needlessly ; till now it is quite 
rent into shreds ; and Society, long pining, diabetic, consumptive, can be 
regarded as defunct ; for those spasmodic, galvanic sprawlings are not 
life ; neither indeed will they endure, galvanise as you may, beyond two 
days." 

"Call ye that a Society," cries he again, " where there is no longer 
any Social Idea extant; not so much as the Idea of a common Home, but 
only of a common, over-crowded Lodging-house ? Where each, isolat- 
ed, regardless of his neighbor, turned against his neighbor, clutches 
what he can get, and cries ' Mine !' and calls it Peace, because, in the 
cut- purse and cut-throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cun- 
ninger sort, can be employed? Where Friendship, Communion, has 
become an incredible tradition ; and your holiest Sacramental Supper is 
a smoking Tavern Dinner, with Cook for Evangelist ? Where your 
Priest has no tongue but for plate-licking : and your high Guides and 
Governors cannot guide ; but on all hands hear it passionately proclaim- 
med : Laissez /aire ; Leave us alone of your guidance, such light is darker 
than darkness ; eat your wages, and sleep ! 

" Thus, too," continues he, " must an observant eye discern every- 
where that saddest spectacle : The Poor perishing, like neglected, foun- 
dered Draught-Cattle, of Hunger and Overwork ; the Rich, still more 
wretchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, and Overgrowth. The Highest in rank, 
at length, without honor from the Lowest ; scarcely, with a little mouth- 
honor, as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in the bill. Once 
sacred Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof men grudge even 
the expense ; a world becoming dismantled in one word, the Church 
fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy ; the State shrunk into a 
Police- Office, straitened to get its pay !" 

We might ask, are there many " observant eyes," belonging to Practical 



THE PHCENIX. 108 

men, in England or elsewhere, which have descried these phenomena ; 
or is it only from the mystic elevation of a German Wahngasse that such 
wonders are visible ? Teufeisdrockh contends that the aspect of a 
*' deceased or expir'ng Society," fronts us everywhere, so that whoso runs 
may read. " What, for example," says he, " is the universally-arrogated 
Virtue, almost the sole remaining Catholic Virtue, of these days ? For 
some half century, it has been the thing you name, ' Independence.' 
Suspicion of ' Servility,' of reverence for Superiors the very dogleech is 
anxious to disavow. Fools ! Were your Superiors worthy to govern, 
and you worthy to obey, reverence for them were even your only possible 
freedom. Independence, in all kinds, is rebellion ; if unjust rebellion, 
why parade it and everywhere prescribe it ?" 

But what then / Are we returning, as Rousseau prayed, to the state 
of Nature ? " The Soul Politic having departed," says Teufeisdrockh, 
" what can follow but that the Body Politic be decently interred, to avoid 
putrescence ? Liberals, Economists, Utilitarians enough I see marching 
with its bier, and chanting loud paeans, towards the funeral-pile, where, 
amid wailings from some, and saturnalian revelries from the most, the 
venerable Corpse is to be burnt. Or, in plain words, that these men. 
Liberals, Utilitarians, or whatsoever they are called, will ultimately carry 
their point, and dissever and destroy most existing Institutions of Society, 
seems a thing which has some time ago ceased to be doubtful. 

" Do we not see a little subdivision of the grand Utilitarian Armament 
come to light even in insulated England ? A living nucleus, that will 
attract and grow, does at length appear there also ; and under curious 
phasis ; properly as the inconsiderable fag-end, and so far in the rear of 
the others as to fancy itself the van. Our European Mechanizers are a. 
sect of boundless diffusion, activity, and co-operative spirit : has not Utili- 
tarianism flourished in high places of Thought, here among ourselves, and 
in every European country, at some time or other, within the last fifty 
years? If now in all countries, except perhaps England, it has ceased 
to flourish, or indeed to exist, among Thinkers, and sunk to Journalists 
and the popular mass, — who sees not that, as hereby it no longer preach- 
es, so the reason is, it now needs no preaching, but is in full universal 
Action, the doctrine everywhere known and enthusiastically laid to 
heart? The fit pabulum, in these times, for a certain rugged workshop- 
intellect and heart, nowise without their corresponding workshop-strength 
and ferocity, it requires but to be stated in such scenes to make prose- 
lytes enough. — Admirably calculated for destroying, only not for rebuild- 
ing ! It spreads like a sort of Dog-madness ; till the whole World-ken- 
nel will be rabid : then wo to the Huntsmen, with or without their 
whips ! They should have given the quadrupeds water," adds he, " the 
water, namely, of Knowledge and of Life, while it was yet time." 

Thus, if Professor Teufeisdrockh can be relied on, we are at this hour 
in a most critical condition ; beleaguered by that boundless " Armament 
of Mechanizers" and Unbelievers, threatening to strip us bare ! " The 
World," says he, " as it needs must, is under a process of devastation and 
waste, which, whether by silent assiduous corrosion, or open quicker 
combustion, as the case chances, will effectually enough annihilate the 
past Forms of Society ; replace them with what it may. For the present, 
it is contemplated that when man's whole Spiritual Interests are once 
divested, these innumerable stript-off" Garments shall mostly be burnt, 
but the sounder Rags among them be quilted together into one huge Irish 
watch-coat for the defence of the Body only !" — This, we think, is but 
Job's news to the humane reader. 

" Nevertheless," cries Teufeisdrockh, '^ who can hinder it ; who is 
there that can clutch into the wheel-spokes of Destiny, and say to the 



104 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

Spirit of the Time : Turn back, I command thee ? — Wiser were it that we 
yielded to the Inevitable and Inexorable, and accounted even this the best." 

Nay, might not an attentive Editor, drawing his own inferences from 
what stands written, conjecture that Teufelsdrockh, individually, had 
yielded to this same " Inevitable and Inexorable" heartily enough ; and 
now sat waiting the issue, with his natural diabolico-angelical Indiffer- 
ence, if not even Placidity ? Did we not hear him complain that the 
World was a " huge Ragfair," and the " rags and tatters of old Symbols" 
were raining down everywhere, like to drift him in, and suffocate him ? 
What with those " unhunted Helots" of his ; and the uneven sic-vos-non- 
vobis pressure, and hard crashing collision he is pleased to discern in ex- 
isting things ; what with the so hateful " empty Masks," full of beetles 
and spiders, yet glaring out on him, from their glass-eyes, " with a ghastly 
affectation of life," — we feel entitled to conclude him even willing that 
much should be thrown to the Devil, so it were but done gently ! Safe 
himself in that " Pinnacle of Weissnichtwo," he would consent, with a 
tragic solemnity, that the monster UTILITARIA, held back, indeed, and 
moderated by nose-rings, halters, foot-shackles, and every conceivable 
modification of rope, should go forth to do her work ; — to tread down old 
ruinous Palaces and Temples, with her broad hoof, till the whole were 
trodden down, that new and better might be built ! Remarkable in this 
point of view are the following sentences. 

" Society," says he, " is not dead : that Carcass, which you called dead 
Society, is but her mortal coil which she has shuffled off, to assume a 
nobler ; she herself, through perpetual metamorphoses, in fairer and fairer 
development, has to live till Time also merge in Eternity. Whereso- 
ever two or three Living Men are gathered together, there is Society ; or 
there it will be, with its cunning mechanisms ; and stupendous structures, 
overspreading this little Globe, and reaching upwards to Heaven and 
downwards to Gehenna : for always, under one or the other figure, it has 
two authentic Revelations, of a God and of a Devil ; the Pulpit, namely, 
and the Gallows." 

Indeed, we already heard him speak of " Religion, in unnoticed nooks, 
weaving for herself new Vestures ;" — Teufelsdrockh himself being one 
of the loom-treadles ? Elsewhere he quotes without censure that strange 
aphorism of Saint-Simon's, concerning which and whom so much were to 
be said : "X'age d'or qu'une aveugle tradition a place jusqu'ici dans le 
passe est devant nous ; The golden age which a blind tradition has 
hitherto placed in the Past is Before us." — But listen again : 

" When the Phoenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not be 
sparks flying ? Alas, some millions of men, and among them such as a 
Napoleon, have already been licked into that high- eddying Flame, and 
like moths, consumed there. Still also have we to fear that incautious 
beards will get singed. 

" For the rest, in what year of grace such Phcenix-cremation will be 
completed, you need not ask. The law of Perseverance is among the 
deepest in man : by nature he hates change ; seldom will he quit his old 
house till it has actually fallen about his ears. Thus have I seen Solem- 
nities linger as Ceremonies, sacred Symbols as idle Pageants, to the ex- 
tent of three hundred years and more after all life and sacredness had 
evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what time the Phoenix Death- 
Birth itself will require, depends on unseen contingencies. — Meanwhile, 
would Destiny offer Mankind that after, say two centuries of convulsion 
and conflagration, more or less vivid, the fire-creation should be accom- 
plished, and we find ourselves again in a Living Society, and no longer 
fighting but working, — were it not perhaps prudent in Mankind to strike 
the bargain ?" 



OLD CLOTHES, lOS 

Thus is Teufelsdrockh content that old siek Society should be deliber- 
ately burnt (alas ! with quite other fuel than spice-wood) : in the faith 
that she is a Phoenix ; and that a new heavenborn young one wiU rise 
out of her ashes ! We ourselves, restricted to the duty of Indicator, shall 
forbear commentary. Meanwhile, will not the judicious reader shake his 
head, and reproachfully, yet more in sorrow than in anger, say or think : 
From a Doctor Utriusque Juris, titular Professor in a University, and 
man to whom hitherto, for his services, Society, bad as she is, has given 
not only food and raiment (of a kind) but books, lobacco and gukguk, we • 
expected more gratitude to his benefactress ; and less of a blind Trust in 
the future, which resembles that rather of a philosophical Fatalist and 
Enthusiast, than of a solid householder paying scot and lot in a Christian 
country. 



CHAPTER VI 



OLD CLOTHES. 



As mentioned above, Teufelsdrockh, though a Sansculottist, is in 
practice probably the politest man extant : his whole heart and life are 
penetrated and informed with the spirit of Politeness ; a noble natural 
Courtesy shines tlu'ough him, beautifying his vagaries ; like sun-light, 
making a rosy-fingered, rainbow-dyed Aurora out of mere aqueous 
clouds ; nay, brightening London smoke itself into gold vapor, as from 
the crucible of an alchemist. Hear in what earnest though fantastic 
wise he expresses himself on this head : 

" Shall Courtesy be done only to the rich, and only by the rich ? Itt 
Good-breeding, which differs, if at all, from High-breeding, only as it 
gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists 
on its own rights, I discern no special connection with wealth and birth % 
but rather that it lies in human nature itself, and is due from all men 
towards all men. Of a truth, were your Schoolmaster at his post, and 
worth anything when there, this, with so much else, would be reformed. 
Nay, each man were then also his neighbor's schoolmaster ; till at 
length a rude-visaged, unmannered Peasant could no more be met with, 
than a Peasant unacquainted with botanical Physiology, or who felt not 
that the clod he broke was created in Heaven. 

"^ For whether thou bear a sceptre or a sledge-hanmier, art thou not 
ALIVE ; is not this thy brother alive ? ' There is but one Temple in the 
world,' says Novalis, • and that Temple is the Body of Man. Nothing 
is holier than this high Form. Bending before man is a reverence done 
to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our 
hands on a human Body.' 

" On which ground I would fain carry it farther than most do ; and 
whereas the English Johnson only bowed to every Clergyman, or man 
with a shovel-hat, I would bow to every Man with any sort of a hat, or 
with no hat whatever. Is he not a Temple, then ; the visible Mani- 
festation and Impersonation of the Divinity ? And yet, alas, such 
indiscriminate bowing serves not. For there is a Devil dwells in man, 
as well as a Divinity ; and too often the bow is but pocketed by the fo7-~ 
mer. It would go to the pocket of Vanity (which is your clearest phasis 
of the Devil, in these times) ; therefore must we withhold it. 

*' The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do reverence to those Shells 
and outer Husks of the Body, wherein no devilish passion any longer 
lodges, but only the pure emblem and effigies of Man : I mean, to Empty, 
or even to Cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to Clothes that most men do 



106 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

reverence : to the fine frogged broadcloth, nowise to the ' straddling 
animal with bandy legs' which it holds, and makes a Dignitary .of? 
Who ever saw any Lord my-lorded in tattered blanket, fastened with a 
wooden skewer ? Nevertheless, I say, there is in such worship a shade 
of hypocrisy, a practical deception : for how often does the Body appro- 
priate what was meant for the Cloth only ! Whoso wou-ld avoid False- 
hood, which is the essence of all Sin, will perhaps see good to take a 
different course. That reverence which cannot act without obstruction 
and perversion when the Clothes are full, may have free course when 
they are empty. Even as, for Hindoo Worshippers, the Pagoda is not 
less sacred than the God; so do I too worship the hollow cloth Garment 
with equal fervor, as when it contained the Man : nay, with more, for 
I now fear no deception, of myself or of others. 

" Did not King Toomtabard, or, in other words, John Balliol, reign 
long over Scotland; the man John Balliol being quite gone, and only 
the ' Toom Tabard' (Empty Gown) remaining ? What still dignity 
dwells in a suit of Cast Clothes ! How meekly it bears its honors ! No 
haughty looks, no scornful gesture ; silent and serene, it fronts the 
world ; neither demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The Hat still 
carries the physiognomy of its Head : but the vanity and the stupidity, 
and goose-speech which was the sign of these two, are gone. The Coat- 
arm is stretched out, but not to strike ; the Breeches, in modest simplicity, 
depend at ease, and now at last have a graceful flow ; the Waistcoat 
hides no evil passion, no riotous desire ; hunger or thirst now dwells not 
in it. Thus all is purged from the grossness of sense, from the carking 
cares and foul vices of the World ; and rides there, on its Clothes- 
horse ; as, on a Pegasus, might some skyey Messenger, or purified 
Apparition, visiting our low Earth. 

" Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous Tuberosity of Civilized 
Life, the Capital of England ; and meditated, and questioned Destiny, 
under the ink-sea of vapor, black, thick, and multifarious as Spartan 
broth ; and was one lone Soul amid those grinding millions ; — often have 
I turned into their Old-Clothes Market to worship. With awe-struck 
heart I walked through that Monmouth Street, with its empty Suits, as 
through a Sanhedrim of stainless Ghosts. Silent are they, but expressive 
in their silence : the past witnesses and instruments of Woe and Joy, of 
Passions, Virtues, Crimes, and all the fathomless tumult of Good and 
Evil in ' the Prison called Life.' Friends ! trust not the heart of that 
man for whom Old Clothes are not venerable. Watch too, with rever- 
ence, that bearded Jewish Highpriest, who with hoarse voice, like some 
Angel of Doom, summons them from the four winds ! On his head, like 
the Pope, he has three Hats, — a real triple tiara ; on either hand, are the 
similitude of Wings, whereon the summoned Garments come to alight ; 
and ever, as he slowly cleaves the air, sounds forth his deep fateful note, 
as if through a trumpet he were proclaiming : ' Ghosts of Life, come to 
Judgment !' Reck not, ye fluttering Ghosts : he will purify you in his 
Purgatory, with fire and with water ; and, one day, new-created ye shall 
reappear. Oh ! let him in whom the flame of Devotion is ready to go 
out, who has never worshipped, and knows not what to worship, pace 
and repace, with austerest thought, the pavement of Monmouth Street, 
and say whether his heart and his eyes still continue dry. If Field Lane, 
with its long fluttering rows of yellow handkerchiefs, be a Dionysius' 
Ear, where, in stifled jarring hubbub, we hear the Indictment which 
Poverty and Vice bring against lazy Wealth, that it has left them there 
east out and trodden under foot of Want, Darkness, and the Devil, — then 
is Monmouth Street a Mirza's Hill, where, in motley vision, the whole 
Pageant of existence passes awfully before us ; with its wail and jubilee, 



ORGAinC FILAMENTS. 107 

mad loves and mad hatreds, church-bells and gallows-ropeSj farce- 
tragedy, beasl-godhood, — the Bedlam of Creation !" 

To most men, as it does to ourselves, all this will seem overcharged. 
We too have walked through Monmouth Street ; but with little feeling of 
" Devotion :" probably in part because the contemplative process is so 
fatally broken in upon by the brood of money-changers, who nestle in 
that Church, and importune the worshipper with merely secular proposals. 
Whereas Teufelsdrockh might be in that happy middle-state, which 
leaves to the Clothes-broker no hope either of sale or of purchase, and 
so be allowed to linger there without molestation. — Something we would 
have given to see the little philosophical Figure, with its steeple-hat and 
loose flowing skirts, and eyes in a fine frenzy, " pacing and repacing in 
austerest thought" that foolish Street ; which to him was a true Delphic 
avenue, and supernatural Whispering-gallery, where the " Ghosts of 
Life" rounded strange secrets in his ear. O thou philosophic Teufels- 
drockh, that listenest while others only gabble, and with thy quick 
tympanum hearest the grass grow ! 

At the same time, is it not strange that, in Paperbag Documents 
destined for an English Work, there exists nothing like an authentic 
diary of this his sojourn in London ; and of his Meditations among the 
Clothes-shops only the obscurest emblematic shadows ? Neither, in 
conversation (for, indeed, he was not a man to pester you with his Travels), 
have we heard him more than allude to the subject. 

For the rest, however, it cannot be uninteresting that we here find 
how early the significance of Clothes had dawned on the now so dis- 
tinguished Clothes-Professor. Might we but fancy it to have been 
even in Monmouth Street, at the bottom of our own English " ink-sea," 
that this remarkable Volume first took being, and shot forth its salient 
point in his soul, — as in Chaos did the Egg of Eros, one day to be 
hatched into a Universe ! 



CHAPTER VII. 



ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 



For US, who happen to live while the World-Phoenix is burning him- 
self, and burning so slowly that, as Teufelsdrockh calculates, it were a 
handsome bargain would she engage to have done " within two centuries," 
there seems to lie but an ashy prospect. Not altogether so, how- 
ever does the Professor figure it. "In the living subject," says he, 
" change is wont to be gradual: thus, while the serpent sheds its old 
skin, the new is already formed beneath. Little knowest thou of the 
burning of a World-Phoenix, who fanciest that she must first burn out, 
and lie as a dead cinereous heap ; and therefrom the young one start up 
by miracle, and fly heavenward. Far otherwise ! In that Fire-whirl- 
wind, Creation and Destruction proceed together; ever as the ashes of 
the Old are blown about, do organic filaments of the New mysteriously 
spin themselves : and amid the rushing and the waving of the Whirlwind- 
Element, come tones of a melodious Deathsong, which end not but in 
tones of a more melodious Birthsong. Nay, look into the Fire-whirl- 
wind with thy own eyes, and thou wilt see." Let us actually look, then : 
to poor individuals, who cannot expect to live two centuries, those same 
organic filaments, mysteriously spinning themselves, will be the best part 
of the spectacle. First, therefore, this of Mankind in general : 

" In vain thou deniest it,'- says the Professor ; " thou art my Brother. 



108 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

Thy very Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish Lies thou tellest of me ia 
thy splenetic humor : what is all this but an inverted Sympathy ? Were 
I a Steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell Lies of me ? Not 
thou ! I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well. 

« Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by 
the soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we like to 
choose it. More than once, have I said to myself, of some perhaps 
whimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes whimsical thoughts : 
' Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered up within the largest 
imaginable Glass-bell, — what a thing it were, not for thyself only, but for 
the world ! Post Letters, more or fewer, from all the four winds, impinge 
against thy Glass walls, but must drop unread : neither from within 
comes there question or response into any Postbag ; thy Thoughts fall 
into no friendly ear or heart, thy Manufacture into no purchasing hand ; 
thou art no longer a circulating venous-arterial Heart, that, taking and 
giving, circulatest through all Space and all Time : there has a Hole 
fallen out in the immeasurable, universal World-tissue, which must be 
darned up again !' 

" Such venous-arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal Messages, paper 
and other Packages, going out from him and coming in, are a blood-cir- 
culation, visible to the eye : but the finer nervous circulation, by which 
all things, the minutest that he does, minutely influence all men, and the 
very look of his face blesses or curses whomso it lights on, and so gene- 
rates ever new blessing or new cursing : all this you cannot see, but only 
imagine. I say, there is not a red Indian, hunting by Lake Winnipic, 
can quarrel with his squaw, but the whole world must smart for it : will 
not the price of beaver rise ? It is a mathematical fact that the casting 
of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the Universe. 

" If now an existing generation of men stand so woven together, not less 
indissolubly does generation with generation. Hast thou ever meditated 
on that word Tradition : how we inherit not Life only, but all the garni- 
ture and form of Life ; and work, and speak, and even think and feel, as 
our Fathers, and primeval grandfathers, from the beginning, have given 
it us ? — Who printed thee, for example, this unpretending Volume on the 
Philosophy of Clothes ? Not the Herren Stillschweigen and Company : 
but Cadmus of Thebes, Faust of Mentz, and innumerable others whom 
thou knowest not. Had there been no Msesogothic Ulfila, there had been 
no English Shakspeare, or a difl^erent one. Simpleton ! it was Tubal- 
cain that made thy very Tailor's needle, and sewed that court suit of thine. 

" Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible whole, much 
more is Mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without 
which Nature were not. As palpable life-streams in that wondrous In- 
dividual Mankind, among so many life-streams that are not palpable, flow 
on those main-currents of what we call Opinion ; as preserved in Institu- 
tions, Politics, Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is to under- 
stand and know that a Thought did never yet die ; that as thou, the ori- 
ginator thereof, hast gathered it and created it from the Whole Past, so 
thou wilt transmit it to the whole Future. It is thus that the heroic 
Heart, the seeing Eye of the first times, still feels and sees in us of the 
latest ; that the Wise Man stands ever encompassed, and spiritually em- 
braced, by a cloud of witnesses and brothers ; and there is a living, literal 
Communion of Saints, wide as the World itself, and as the History of the 
World. 

Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress of this same Indivi- 
dual, wilt thou find his subdivision into Generations. Generations are as 
the days of toilsome Mankind ; Death and Birth are the vesper and the 
matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed for new 



ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 

advancement. What the Father has made the Son can make and enjoy ; 
but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus all things wax, and 
roll onwards ; Arts, Establishments, Opinions, nothing is completed, but 
ever completing. Newton has learned to see what Kepler saw ; but there 
is also a fresh heaven-derived force in Newton ; he must mount to still 
higher points of vision. So too the Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due time, 
followed by an Apostle of the Gentiles. In the business of Destruction, 
as this also is from time to time a necessary work, thou findest a like 
sequence and perseverance : for Luther it was as yet hot enough to stand 
by that burning of the Pope's Bull ; Voltaire could not warm himself at 
the glimmering ashes, but required quite other fuel. Thus likewise, I 
note, the English Whig has, in the second generation, become an English 
Radical ; who, in the third again, it is to be hoped, will become an Eng- 
lish Rebuilder. Find Mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in living 
movement, in progress faster or slower : the Phoenix soars aloft, hovers 
with outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music ; or, as now, she 
sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she 
may soar the higher and sing the clearer." 

Let the friends of social order, in such a disastrous period, lay this to 
heart, and derive from it any little comfort they can. We subjoin another 
passage, concerning Titles : 

" Remark, not without surprise," says Teufelsdrockh, " how all high 
Titles of Honor come hitherto from Fighting. Your Herzog (Duke, Dux) 
is Leader of Armies ; your Earl (Jarl) is Strong Man ; your Marshal 
cavalry Horse-shoer. A Millenium, or reign of Peace and Wisdom, hav- 
ing from of old been prophesied, and becoming now daily more and more 
indubitable, may it not be apprehended that such Fighting-titles will 
cease to be palatable, and new and higher need to be devised ? 

" The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace eternity, is that of 
King. Kdnig (King), anciently jfiTowmrag, means Ken-ning (Cunning), or 
which is the same thing, Can-ning. Ever must the Sovereign of Man- 
kind be fitly entitled King." 

" Well, also," says he elsewhere, " was it written by Theologians : a 
King rules by divine right. He carries in him an authority from God, or 
man will never give it him. Can I choose my own King ? I can choose 
my own King Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him : 
but he who is to be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will, 
was chosen for me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to the 
Heaven-chosen is Freedom so much as conceivable." 

The Editor will here admit that, among all the wondrous provinces of 
Teufelsdrockh's spiritual world, there is none he walks in with such aston- 
ishment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the Political. How, with 
our English love of Ministry and Opposition, and that generous conflict 
of Parties, mind warming itself against mind in their mutual wrestle for 
the Public Good, by which wrestle, indeed, is our invaluable Constitution 
kept warm and alive ; how shall we domesticate ourselves in this spectral 
Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead and of the Unborn, where the 
Present seems little other than an inconsiderable Film dividing the Past 
and the Future ? In those dim longdrawn expanses, all is so immeasura- 
ble ; much so disastrous, ghastly ; your very radiances, and straggling 
light-beams, have a supernatural character. And tlien with such an 
indiflerence, such a prophetic peacefulness (accounting the inevitably- 
coming as already here, to him all one whether it be distant by centuries 
or only by days), does he sit ; — and live, you would say, rather in any 
other age than in his own! It is our painful duty to announce, or 
repeat, that, looking into this man, we discern a deep, sUent, slow-burning, 
inextinguishable Radicalism, such as fills us with shuddering admiration. 
10 



110 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

Thus, for example, he appears to make little even of the Elective 
Franchise ; at least so we interpret the following : " Satisfy your- 
selves," he says, " by universal, indubitable experiment, even as ye are 
now doing or will do, whether Freedom heavenborn and leading heaven- 
ward, and so vitally essential for us all, cannot peradventure be 
mechanically hatched and brought to light in that same Ballot-Box of 
yours ; or at worst, in some other discoverable or devisable Box, Edifice, 
or Steam-mechanism. It were a mighty convenience ; and beyond all 
feats of manufacture witnessed hitherto." Is Teufelsdrockh acquainted 
with the British Constitution, even slightly ? — He says, under another 
figure : " But after all, were the problem, as indeed it now everywhere 
is, To rebuild your old House from the top downwards (since you must 
live in it the while), what better, what other, than the Representative 
Machine will serve your turn ? Meanwhile, however, mock me not with 
the name of Free, ' when you have but knit up my chains into orna- 
mental festoons.' " — Or what will any member of the Peace Society make 
of such an assertion as this : " The lower people everywhere desire 
War. Not so unwisely ; there is then a demand for lower people — to be ' 
shot !" 

Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul-confusing, labyrinths 
of speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer regions. Here, look- 
ing round, as was our best, for " organic filaments," we ask, may not this, 
touching " Hero-worship," be of the number ? It seems of a cheerful char- 
acter ; yet so quaint, so mystical, one knows not what, or how little, may 
lie under it. Our readers shall look with their own eyes : 

" True is it that, in these days, man can do almost all things, only not 
obey. True likewise that whoso cannot obey cannot be free, stUl less 
bear rule ; he that i«> the inferior of nothing, can be the superior of 
nothing, the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe not that man has 
lost his faculty of Reverence ; that if it slumber in him, it has gone dead. 
Painful for man is that same rebellious Independence, when it has 
become inevitable ; only in loving companionship with his fellows does 
he feel safe ; only in reverently bowing down before the Higher does he 
feel himself exalted. 

"Or what if the character of our so troublous Era lay even in this: 
that man had for ever cast away Fear, which is the lower : but not yet 
risen into perennial Reverence, which is the higher and highest ? 

*' Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has Nature ordered it, 
that whatsoever man ought to obey he cannot but obey. Before no faintest 
revelation of the Godlike did he ever stand irreverent ; least of all, when 
the Godlike showed itself revealed in his fellow-man. Thus is there a 
true religious Loyalty for ever rooted in his heart ; nay, in all ages, even 
in ours, it manifests itself as a more or less orthodox Hero-worship. In 
which fact, that Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will for ever exist, 
universally among Mankind, mayest thou discern the corner-stone of 
living-rock, whereon all Polities for the remotest time may stand secure." 
Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or even so much as 
what Teufelsdrockh is looking at ? He exclaims, " Or hast thou for- 
gotten Paris and Voltaire ? How the aged, withered man, though but a 
Sceptic, Mocker, and millinery Court-poet, yet because even he seemed the 
Wisest, Best, could drag mankind at his chariot-wheels, so that princes 
coveted a smile from him, and the loveliest of France would have laid 
their hair beneath his feet ! All Paris was one vast Temple of Hero- 
Worship ; though their Divinity, moreover, was of feature too apish. 

" But if such things," continues he, " were done in the dry tree, what 
will be done in the green ? If, in the most parched season of Man's 
History, in the most parched spot of Europe, when Parisian life was at 



OE,GANIC FILAMENTS. Ill 

best but a scientific Hortus Siccus, bedizened with some Italian Gum- 
flowers, such virtue could come out of it; what is it to be looked for 
when Life again waves leafy and bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shall 
have nothing ape-like, but be wholly human ? Know that there is in 
man a quite indestructible Reverence for whatsoever holds of Heaven, or 
even plausibly counterfeits such holding. Show the dullest clodpole, 
show the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul Higher than himself is 
actually here ; were his knees stiffened into brass, he must down and 
worship." 

Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mysteriously spinning 
themselves, some will perhaps discover in the following passage : 

" There is no Church, sayest thou ? The voice of Prophecy has gone 
dumb ? This is even what I dispute : but in any case, hast thou not still 
Preaching enough ? A Preaching Friar settles himself in every village ; 
and builds a pulpit, which he calls Newspaper. Therefrom he preaches 
what most momentous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation ; and dost 
not thou listen, and believe ? Look well, thou seest everywhere a new 
Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, some bare-footed, some almost bare- 
backed, fashion itself into shape, and teach and preach, zealously 
enough, for copper alms and the love of God. These break in pieces the 
ancient idols : and though themselves too often reprobate, as idol- 
breakers are wont to be, mark out the sites of new Churches, where the 
true God-ordained, that are to follow, may find audience, and minister. 
Said I not. Before the old skin was shed, the new had formed itself 
beneath it ?" 

Perhaps, also, in the following ; wherewith we now hasten to knit up 
this ravelled sleeve : 

" Bat there is no Religion ?" reiterates the Professor. " Fool ! I tell 
thee, there is. Hast thou well considered all that lies in this immeasurable 
froth-ocean we name Literature ? Fragments of a genuine Church- 
Homiktic lie scattered there, which Time will assort : nay, fractions 
even of a Liturgy could I point out. And knowest thou no Prophet, 
even in the vesture, environment, and dialect of this age ? None to 
whom the Godlike had revealed itself, through all meanest and highest 
forms of the Common ; and by him been again prophetically revealed : in 
whose inspired melody, even in these rag-gathering and rag-burning days, 
Man's Life again begins, were it but afar off, to be divine ? Knowest 
thou none such ? I know him, and name him — Goethe. 

'^ But thou as yet standest in no Temple ; joinest in no Psalm-worship ; 
feelest well that, where there is no ministering Priest, the people perish ? 
Be of comfort ! Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith. Spake we not 
of a Communion of Saints, unseen, yet not unreal, accompanying and 
brother-like embracing thee, so thou be worthy ? Their heroic Suflferings 
rise up melodiously together to Heaven, out of all lands, and out of all 
times, as a sacred Miserere; their heroic Actions also, as a boundless, 
everlasting Psalm of Triumph. Neither say that thou hast now no 
Symbol of the Godlike. Is not God's Universe a Symbol of the Godlike ; 
is not Immensity a Temple ; is not Man's History, and Men's History, a 
perpetual Evangel ? Listen, and for organ-music thou wilt ever, as of 
old, hear the Morning Stars sing together." 



112 SARTOR RESARTUS. 



CHAPTER VIII 



NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 



It is in his stupendous Section, headed Natural Supernaturalism, that 
the Professor first becomes a Seer ; and, after long effort, such as we 
have witnessed, finally subdues under his feet this refractory Clothes- 
Philosophy, and takes victorious possession thereof. Phantasms enough 
he has had to struggle with ; " Cloth-webs and Cobwebs," of Imperial 
Mantles, Superannuated Symbols, and what not : yet still did he courage- 
ously pier^ce through. Nay, worst of all, two quite mysterious, world- 
embracing'kPhantasms, Time and Space, have ever hovered round him, 
perplexing and bewildering: but with these also he now resolutely 
grapples, these also he victoriously rends asunder. In a word, he has 
looked fixedly on Existence, till, one after the other, its earthly hulls and 
garnitures have all melted away ; and now, to his rapid vision, the interior 
celestial Holy of Holies lies disclosed. 

Here therefore properly it is that the Philosophy of Clothes attains to 
Transcendentalism ; this last leap, can we but clear it, takes us safe into 
the promised land, where Palingemsia, in all senses, may be considered 
as beginning. " Courage, then !" may our Diogenes exclaim, with 
better right than Diogenes the First once did. This stupendous Section 
we, after long painful meditation, have found not to be unintelligible ; 
but on the contrary to grow clear, nay radiant, and all-illuminating. 
Let the reader, turning on it what utmost force of speculative intellect is 
in him, do his part ; as we, by judicious selection and adjustment, shall 
study to do ours : 

" Deep has been, and is, the significance of Miracles," thus quietly 
begins the Professor; "far deeper perhaps than we imagine. Mean- 
while, the question of questions were : What specially is a Miracle ? 
To that Dutch King of Siam, an icicle had been a miracle ; whoso had 
carried with him an air-pump, and phial of vitriolic ether, might have 
worked a miracle. To my Horse again, who unhappily is still more 
unscientific, do not I work a miracle, and magical ' Open sesame !' every- 
time I please to pay twopence, and open for him an impassable Schlag- 
haum, or shut Turnpike ? 

" ' But is not a real Miracle simply a violation of the Laws of 
Nature V ask several. Whom I answer by this new question : What 
are the Laws of Nature ? To me perhaps the rising of one from the 
dead were no violation of these Laws, but a confirmation ; were some 
far deeper Laws, now first penetrated into, and by Spiritual Force, even 
as the-rest have all been, brought to bear on us with its Material Force. 
"Here too may some inquire, not without astonishment : On what 
ground shall one, that can make Iron swim, come and delare that there- 
fore he can teach Religion ? To us, truly, of the Nineteenth Century, 
such declaration were inept enough ; which nevertheless to our fathers, 
of the First Century, was full of meaning. 

" ' But is it not the deepest Law of Nature that she be constant ?' 
cries an illuminated class : ' Is not the Machine of the Universe fixed to 
move by unalterable rules ?' Probable enough, good friends : nay, I too 
must believe that the God, whom ancient, inspired men, assert to be 
* without variableness or shadow of turning,' does indeed never change ; 
that Nature, that the Universe, which no one whom it so pleases can be 
prevented from calling a Machine, does move by the most unalterable 
rules. And now of you too I make the old inquiry : What those same 



NATURAL SUrERNATURALlSM. 113 

unalterable rules, forming the complete Statute-Book of Nature, may 
possibly be ? 

" They stand written in our Works of Science, say you ; in the accu- 
mulated records of man's Eperience ? — Was man with his Experience 
present at the Creation, then, to see how it all went on ? Have any 
deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to the foundations of the 
Universe, and gauged everything there ? Did the Maker take them into 
His Counsel ; that they read His ground-plan of the incomprehensible 
All ; and can say. This stands marked therein, and no more than this ? 
Alas, not in anywise ! These scientific individuals have been nowhere 
but where we also are ; have seen some handbreadths deeper than we 
see into the Deep that is infinite, without bottom as without shore. 

" Laplace's Book on the Stars, wherein he exhibits that certain 
Planets, with their Satellites, gyrate round our worthy Sun, at a rate and 
ill a course, which by the greatest good fortune, he and the like of him 
have succeeded in detecting, — is to me as precious as to another. But is 
this what thou namest ^ Mechanism of the Heavens,' and ' System of the 
World ;' this, wherein Sirius and the Pleiades, and all Herschel's Fifteen 
thousand Suns per minute, being left out, some paltry handful of Moons, 
and inert Balls, had been — looked at, nicknamed, and marked in the 
Zodiacal Waybill ; so that we can now prate of their Whereabout ; their 
How, their Why, their What, being hid from us as in the signless Inane ? 

" System of Nature ! To the wisest man, wide as is his vision. Nature 
remains of quite mfinite depth, of quite infinite expansion ; and all 
Experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries, and mea- 
sured square-miles. The course of Natui'e's phases, on this our little 
fraction of a Planet, is partially known to us : but who knows what 
deeper courses these depend on ; what infinitely larger Cycle (of causes) 
our little Epicycle revolves on ? To the Minnow every cranny and 
pebble, and quality and accident, of its little native Creek may have 
become familiar : but does the Minnow understand the Ocean Tides and 
periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses ; 
by all which the condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may, from 
time to time (wMmiraculously enough), be quite overset and reversed ? 
Such a minnow is man ; his Creek this Planet Earth ; his Ocean the 
immeasurable All : his Monsoons and periodic Currents the mysterious 
Course of Providence through ^ons of ^ons. 

" We speak of the Volume of Nature : and truly a Volume it is, — 
whose Author and Writer is God. To read it ! Dost thou, does man, 
so much as well know the Alphabet thereof? With its Words, 
Sentences, and grand descriptive Pages, poetical and philosophical, spread 
out through Solar Systems, and Thousands of Years, we shall not try 
thee. It is a Volume written in celestial hieroglyphs, in the true Sacred- 
writing ; of which even Prophets are haj)py that they can read here a 
line and there a line. As for your Institutes, and Academies of 
Science, they strive bravely ; and, from amid the thick-crowded, 
inextricably intertwisted hieroglyphic writing, pick out, by dexterous 
combination, some Letters in the vulgar Character, and therefrom put 
together this and the other economic Recipe, of high avail in Practice. 
That Nature is more than some boundless Volume of such Kecipes, or 
huge, well-nigh inexhaustible Domestic-Cookery Book, of which the 
whole secret will, in this wise, one day, evolve itself, the fewest dream. 

" Custom," continues the Professor, " doth make dotards of us all. 
Consider well, thou wilt find that Custom is the greatest of Weavers ; 
and weaves air-raiment for all the Spirits of the Universe ; whereby 
indeed these dwell with us visibly, as ministering servants, in our houses 
and workshops ; but their spiritual nature becomes, to the most, for evev 
10* 



114 SARTOR RESA3TUS. 

hidden. Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from the 
first ; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it ; that our 
very Axioms, let us boast of Freethinking as we may, are oftenest simply 
such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay, what is Philoso- 
phy but a continual battle against Custom ; an ever-renewed effort to 
transcend the sphere of blind Custom, and so become Transcendental ? 

" Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain tricks of Custom : but 
of all these perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the 
Miraculous, by simple representation, ceases to be Miraculous. True, it 
is by this means we live : for man must work as well as wonder : and 
herein is Custom so far a kind nurse, guiding him to his true benefit. 
But she is a fond foolish nurse, or rather we are false foolish nurselings, 
when, in our resting and reflecting hours, we prolong the same deception. 
Am I to view the Stupendous with stupid indifference, because I have seen 
it twice, or two hundred, or two million times ? There is no reason in 
Nature or in Art why I should : unless, indeed, I am a mere Work- 
Machine, for whom the divine gift of Thought were no other than the 
terrestrial gift of Steam is to the Steam-engine ; a power whereby Cotton 
might be spun, and money and money's worth realised. 

" Notable enough too, here as elsewhere, wilt thou find the potency of 
Names ; which indeed are but one kind of such Custom-woven, wonder- 
hiding garments. Witchcraft, and all manner of Spectre-work, and De- 
monology, we have now named Madness, and Diseases of the Nerves. 
Seldom reflecting that still the new question comes upon us : What is 
Madness, what are Nerves ? Ever, as before, does Madness remain a 
mysterious-terrific, altogether infernal boiling up of the Nether Chaotic 
Deep, through this fair-painted Vision of Creation, which swims thereon, 
which we name the Real. Was Luther's Picture of the Devil less a 
Reality, whether it were formed within the bodily eye, or without it ? In 
every the wisest Soul, lies a whole world of internal Madness, an authen- 
tic Demon-Empire ; out of which, indeed, his world of Wisdom has been 
creatively built together, and now rests there, as on its dark foundations 
does a habitable flowery Earth-rind. 

" But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Wonder, as for 
many other ends, are your two grand fundamental world-enveloping Ap- 
pearances, Space and Time. These, as spun and woven for us from 
before Birth itself, to clothe our celestial Me for dwelling here, and yet 
to blind it, — lie all-embracing, as the universal canvass, or warp and 
woof, whereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave 
and paint themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you endeavor 
to strip them off; you can, at best, but rend them asunder for moments, 
and look through. 

" Fortunatus had a wishing Hat, which when he put on, and wished 
himself Anywhere, behold he was There. By this means had Fortunatus 
triumphed over Space, he had annihilated Space ; for him there was no 
Where, but all was Here. Were a Hatter to establish himself in the 
Wahngasse of Weissnichtwo, and make felts of this sort for all mankind, 
what a world we should have of it ! Still stranger, should, on the oppo- 
site side of the street, another Hatter establish himself; and, as his fel- 
low-craftsman made Space-annihilating Hats, make Time-annihilating ? 
Of both would I purchase, were it with my last groschen ; but chiefly of 
this latter. To clap on your felt, and, simply by wishing that you were 
Kny where, straightway to be There ! Next to clap on your other felt, 
and, simply by wishing that you were Anjwhen, straightway to be Then ! 
This were indeed the grander : shooting at will from the Fire-Creation of 
the World to its Fire-Consummation ; here historically present in the 
First Century, conversing face to face with Paul and Seneca, there pro- 



NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 115 

phetically in the Thirty-first, conversing also face to face with other 
Pauls and Senecas, who as yet stand hidden in the depth of that late Time ! 
*' Or thinkest thou, it were impossible, unimaginable ? Is the Past 
annihilated, then, or only past ; is the Future non-extant, or only future ? 
Those mystic faculties of thine, Memory and Hope, already answer: 
already through those mystic avenues, thou the Earth-blinded summonest 
both Past and Future, and communest with them, though as yet darkly, 
and with mute beckonings. The curtains of Yesterday drop down, the 
curtains of To-morrow roll up ; but Yesterday and To-morrow both are. 
Pierce through the Time-Element, glance into the Eternal. Believe what 
thou findest written in the sanctuai'ies of Man's Soul, even as all Think- 
ers, in all ages, have devoutly read it there : that Time and Space are not 
God, but creations of God ; that with God as it is a universal Here, so is 
it an Everlasting Now. 

*^' And seest thou therein any glimpse of Immortality ? — Heaven ! 
Is the white Tomb of our Loved One, who died from our arms, and must 
be left behind us there, which rises in the distance, like a pale, mournfully 
receding Milestone, to tell how many toilsome uncheered miles we have 
journeyed on alone, — hut a pale spectral Illusion ! Is the lost Friend 
still mysteriously Here, even as we are Here mysteriously, with God ! — 
Know of a truth that only the Time-shadows have perished, or are 
perishable ; that the real Being of whatever was, and whatever is, and 
whatever will be, is even now and for ever. This, should it seem new, 
thou mayest ponder, at thy leisure ; for the next twenty years, or the next 
twenty centuries : believe it thou must ; understand it thou canst not. 

" That the Thought-forms, Space and Time, wherein, once for all, we 
are sent into this Earth to live, should condition and determine our whole 
Practical reasonings, conceptions, and imagings or imaginings, — seems 
altogether fit, just and unavoidable. But that they should, farthermore, 
usurp such sway over pure spiritual Meditation, and blind us to the won- 
der everywhere lying close on us, seems nowise so. Admit Space and 
Time to their due rank as Forms of Thought ; nay, even, if thou wilt, to 
their quite undue rank of Realities : and consider, then, with thyself hov/ 
their thin disguises hide from us the brightest God-efiFulgences ! Thus, 
were it not miraculous, could I stretch forth my hand, and clutch the Sun ? 
Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my hand, and therewith clutch many 
a thing, and swing it hither and thither. Art thou a grown Baby, then, 
to fancy that the Miracle lies in miles of distance, or in pounds avoirdu- 
pois of weight ; and not to see that the true inexplicable God-revealing 
Miracle lies in this, that I can stretch forth my hand at all ; that I have 
free Force to clutch aught therewith ? Innumerable other of this sort are 
the deceptions, and wonder-hiding stupefactions, that Space practises on us. 
" Still worse is it with regard to Time. Your grand anti-magician, and 
universal wonder-hider, is this same lying Time. Had we but the Time- 
annihilating Hat, to put on for once only, we should see ourselves in a 
World of Miracles, wherein all fabled or authentic Thaumaturgy, and 
feats of Magic, were outdone. But unhappily we have not such a Hat ; 
and man, poor fool that he is, can seldom help himself without one. 

" "Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Orpheus, or Amphion, built 
the walls of Thebes by the mere sound of his Lyre ? Yet tell me. Who 
built these walls of Weissnichtwo ; summoning out all the sandstone 
rocks, to dance along from the Steinbruch (now a huge Troglodyte Chasm, 
with frightful green-mantled pools) ; and shape themselves into Doric and 
Ionic pillars, squared ashlar houses, and noble streets I Was it not the 
still higher Orpheus, or Orphenses, who, in past centuries, by the divine 
Music of Wisdom, succeeded in civilizing Man ? Our highest Orpheus 
Walked in Judea, eighteen hundred years ago : his sphere-melody, flowing 



116 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

in wild native tones, took captive the ravished souls of men ; and being, 
of a truth, sphere-melody, still flows and sounds, though now with thou- 
sandfold Accompaniments, and rich symphonies, through all our heaits; 
and modulates, and divinely leads them. Is that a wonder, which hap- 
pens in two hours ; and does it cease to be wonderful if happening in two 
million ? Not only was Thebes built by the Music of an Orpheus ; but 
without the music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no 
work that man glories in ever done. 

"Sweep away the Illusion of Time; glance, if thou have eyes, from 
the near moving-cause to its far distant Mover : The stroke that came 
transmitted through a whole galaxy of elastic balls, was it less a stroke 
than if the last ball only had been struck, and sent flying ? Oh, could I 
(with the Time-annihilating Hat) transport thee direct from the Begin- 
nings to the Endings, how were thy eyesight unsealed, and thy heart set 
flaming in the Light- sea of celestial wonder ! Then sawest thou that this 
fair Universe, were it in the meanest province thereof, is in very deed 
the star-doomed City of God ; that through every star, through every 
grassblade, and most through every Living Soul, the glory of a present 
God still beams. But Nature, which is the Time-vesture of God, and 
reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish. 

" Again, could anything be more miraculous than an actual authentic 
Ghost ? The English Johnson longed, all his life, to see one ; but could 
not, though he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church-vaults, and 
tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor ! Did he never, with the mind's eye 
as well as with the body's, look round him into that full tide of human 
Life he so loved ; did he never so much as look into Himself ? The 
good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as heart could wish j 
well nigh a million of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his side. 
Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time ; compress the three- 
score years into three minutes : what else was he, what else are we ? 
Are we not Spirits, shaped into a body, into an Appearance ; and that 
fade away again into air, and Invisibility ? This is no metaphor, it is a 
simple scientific /(zc^ ; we start out of Nothingness, take figure, and are 
Apparitions ; round us, as round the veriest spectre, is Eternity ; and to 
Eternity minutes are as years and aeons. Come there not tones of Love 
and Faith, as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song of beatified Souls ? 
And again, do we not squeak and gibber (in our discordant, screech- 
owlish debatings and recriminatings) ; and glide bodeful, and feeble, and 
fearful ; or uproar (poltern), and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead, — 
till the scent of the morning-air summons us to our still Home ; and 
dreamy Night becomes awake and Day ? Where now is Alexander of 
Macedon ; does the steel Host, that yelled in fierce battle-shouts at Issus 
and Arbela, remain behind him ; or have they all vanished utterly, even 
as perturbed Goblins must ? Napoleon too, and his Moscow Retreats 
and Austerlitz Campaigns ! Was it all other than the veriest Spectre- 
Hunt; which has now, with its howling tumult that made Night 
hideous, flitted away ? — Ghosts ! There are nigh a thousand million 
walking the earth openly at noontide ; some half-hundred have vanished 
from it, some half-hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch ticks once. 

" O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only 
carry each a future Ghost within him ; but are, in very deed. Ghosts ! 
These Limbs, whence had we them ; this stormy Force; this life-blood 
with its burning Passion ? They are dust and shadow ; a Shadow-system 
gathered round our Me ; wherein, through some moments or years, the 
Divine Essence is to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior on his 
strong war-horse, fire flashes through his eyes ; force dwells in his arm and 
heai't : but warrior and war-horse are a vision ; a revealed Force, nothing 



CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 1 17 

more. Stately they tread the Earth, as if it were a firm substanoe : fool ! 
the Earth is but a film ; it cracks in twain, and warrior and war-horse 
sink beyond plummet's sounding. Plummet's ? Fantasy herself will not 
follow them. A little while ago they were not ; a little while and they 
are not, their very ashes are not. 

" So has it been from the beginning, and so it will be to the end. Gene- 
ration after generation takes to itself the Form of a Body ; and forth- 
issuing from Cimmerian Night, on Heaven's mission appears. What 
Force and Fire is in each he expends : one grinding in the mill of Indus- 
try ; one hunter-like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of Science ; one 
madly dashed in pieces on the rocks of Strife, in war with his fellow : — 
and then the Heaven-sent is recalled ; his earthly Vesture falls away, and 
soon even to Sense becomes a vanished Shadow. Thus, like some wild- 
flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's Artillery, does this mysterious 
Mankind thunder and flame, in long-drawn, quick-succeeding grandeur, 
through the unknown Deep. Thus, like a God-created, fire-breathing 
Spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane ; haste stormfully across the aston- 
ished Earth ; then plunge again into the Inane. Earth's mountains are 
levelled, and her seas filled up, in our passage : can the Earth, which is 
but dead and a vision, resist Spirits which have reality and are alive ? 
On the hardest adamant some foot-print of us is stamped in ; the last 
Rear of the host will read traces of the earliest Van. But whence ? — O 
Heaven, whither ? Sense knows not ; Faith knows not ; only that it is 
through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to God. 

' " We are such stuff 
As Dreams are made of, and our little Life 
Is rounded with a sleep !" ' 



CHAPTER IX, 

CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 

Here then arises the so momentous question : Have many British 
Readers actually arrived with us at the new promised country ; is the 
Philosophy of Clothes now at last opening around them ? Long and 
adventurous has the journey been : from those outmost vulgar, palpable 
Woollen-Hulls of Man ; through his wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his 
wondrous Social Garnitures ; inwards to the Garments of his very Soul's 
Soul, to Time and Space themselves ? And now does the Spiritual, 
eternal Essence of Man and of Mankind, bared of such wrappages, begin 
in any measure to reveal itself ? Can many readers discern, as through 
a glass larkly, in huge wavering outlines, some primeval rudiments of 
Man's Being, what is changeable divided from what is unchangeable ? 
Does that Earth-Spirit's speech in Faust : 

""Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I play, 

And weave for God the Garment thou see'st him by ;" 

or that other thousand-times-repeated speech of the Magician, Shaks- 
peare : 

"And like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
The cloudcapt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces, 
The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself, 
And all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 
And like this unsubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a wrack behind;" 

begin to have some meaning for us ? In a word, do we at length stand 
safe in the far region of Poetic Creation and Palingenesia, where that 
Phcenix Death-Birth of Human Society, and of all Human Things, 
appears possible, is seen to be inevitable ? 



118 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

Along this most insufficient, unheard-of-Bridge, which the Editor, by 
Heaven's blessing, has now seen himself enabled to conclude, if not com- 
plete, it cannot be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope, that 
many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, overspanning the 
Impassible with paved highway, could the Editor construct ; only, as was 
said, some zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. Alas, 
and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of a breakneck character ; 
the darkness, the nature of the element, all was against us ! 

Nevertheless, may not here and there one of a thousand, provided with 
a discursiveness of intellect rare in our day, have cleared the passage, in 
spite of all ? Happy few ! little band of Friends ! be welcome, be of 
courage. By degrees, the eye grows accustomed to its new Whereabout ; 
the hand can stretch itself forth to work there : it is in this grand and 
indeed highest work of Palingenesia that ye shall labor, each according 
to ability. New laborers will arrive; new Bridges will be built: nay, 
may not our own poor rope-and-raft Bridge, in your passings and 
repassings, be mended in many a point, till it grow quite firm, passable 
even for the halt ? 

Meanwhile, of the innumerable multitude that started with us, joyous 
and full of hope, where now is the innumerable remainder, whom we see 
no longer by our side ? The most have recoiled, and stand gazing afar 
off, in unsympathetic astonishment, at our career : not a few, pressing 
forward with more courage, have missed footing, or leaped short ; and 
now swim weltering in the Chaos-flood, some towards this shore, some 
towards that. To these also a helping hand should be held out ; at least 
some word of encouragement be said. 

Or, to speak without metaphor, with which mode of utterance 
Teufelsdrockh unhappily has somewhat infected us, — can it be hidden 
from the Editor that many a British Reader sits reading quite bewildered 
in head, and afilicted rather than instructed by the present Work ? Yes, 
long ago has many a British Reader been, as now, demanding with some- 
thing like a snarl : Whereto does all this lead ; or what use is in it ? 

In the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise aiding thy digestive 
faculty, British reader, it leads to nothing, and there is no use in it ; 
but rather the reverse, for it costs thee somewhat. Nevertheless, if 
through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufelsdrockh, and we by means of 
him, have led thee into the true Land of Dreams ; and through the 
Clothes-Screen, as through a magical Pierre-Pertuis, thou lookest, even 
for moments, into the region of the Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy 
daOy life is girt with Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very blan- 
kets and breeches are Miracles, — then art thou profited beyond money's 
worth, and hast a thankfulness towards our Professor ; nay, perhaps in 
many a literary Tea-circle, wilt open thy kind lips, and audibly express 
that same. 

Nay, farther; art not thou too perhaps by this time made aware that all 
Symbols are properly Clothes ; that all Forms whereby Spirit manifests 
itself to Sense, whether outwardly or in the imagination, are Clothes; 
and thus not only the parchment Magna Charta, which a Tailor was 
nigh cutting into measures, but the Pomp and Authority of Law, the 
sacredness of Majesty, and all inferior Worships (Worth-ships) are 
properly a Vesture and Raiment ; and the Thirty-nine Articles them- 
selves are articles of wearing apparel (for the Religious Idea) ? In 
which case, must it not also be admitted that this Science of Clothes is a 
high one, and may with infinitely deeper study on thy part yield richer 
fruit : that it takes scientific rank beside Codification, and Political Eco- 
nomy, and the Theory of the British Constitution ; nay, rather, from its 
prophetic height looks down on all these, as on so many weaving-shops 



THE DANDIACAL BODY. 119 

and spinning-mills, where the Vestures which it has to fashion, and con- 
secrate, and distribute, are, too often by haggard hungry operatives who 
see no farther than their nose, mechanically woven and spun ? 

But omitting all this, much more all that concerns Natural Superna- 
turalism, and indeed whatever has reference to the Ulterior or Transcen- 
dental Portion of the Science, or bears never so remotely on that promised 
Volume of the Palingenesie der Tnenschlichen Gesellschaft (Newbirth of 
Society), — we humbly suggest that no province of Clothes-Philosophy, 
even the lowest, is without its direct value, but that innumerable 
inferences of a practical nature may be drawn therefrom. To say 
nothing of those pregnant considerations, ethical, political, symbolical, 
which crowd on the Clothes-Philosopher from the very threshold of his 
Science : nothing even of those " architectural ideas" which, as we have 
seen, lurk at the bottom of all Modes, and will one day, better unfolding 
themselves, lead to important revolutions, — let us glance for a moment, 
and with the faintest light of Clothes-Philosophy, on what may be called 
the Habilatory Class of our fellow-men. Here too overlooking, where so 
much were to be looked on, the million spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, 
washers, and wringers, that puddle and muddle in their dark recesses, to 
make us Clothes, and die that we may live, — let us but turn the reader's 
attention upon two small divisions of mankind, who, like moths, may be 
regarded as Cloth- animals, creatures that live, move and have their being 
in Cloth : we mean. Dandies and Tailors. 

In regard to both which small divisions it may be asserted, without 
scruple, that the public feeling, unenlightened by Philosophy, is at fault ; 
and even that the dictates of humanity are violated. As will perhaps 
abundantly appear to readers of the two following Chapters. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE DANDIACAL BODY. 



First, touching Dandies, let us consider with some scientific strictness^ 
what a Dandy specially is. A Dandy is a Clothes- wearing Man, a Man 
whose trade, office, and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. 
Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is heroically conse- 
crated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes wisely and well : so that 
as others dress to live, he lives to dress. The all-importance of Clothes, 
which a German Professor, of unequalled learning and acumen, writes 
his enormous Volume to demonstrate, has sprung up in the intellect of the 
Dandy, without eifort, like an instinct of genius; he is inspired with 
Cloth, a Poet of Cloth. What Teufelsdrdckh would call a " Divine Idea 
of Cloth" is born with him ; and this, like other such Ideas, will express 
itself outwardly, or wring his heart asunder with unutterable throes. 

But, like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes his Idea 
an Action ; shows himself, in peculiar guise, to mankind ; walks forth, a 
witness and living Martyr to the eternal Worth of Clothes. We called. 
him a Poet : is not his body the (stuffed) parchment-skin whereon he 
writes, with cunning Huddersfield dyes, a Sonnet to his mistress' eye- 
brow ? Say, rather, an Epos, and Clotha Virumque cano, to the whole 
world, in Macaronic verses, which he that runs may read. Nay, if you 
grant, what seems to be admissible, that the Dandy has a Thinking-prin- 
ciple in him, and some notions of Time and Space, is there not in this 
Life-devotedness to Cloth, in this so willing sacrifice of the Immortal to 
the Perishable, something (though in reverse order) of that blending and 



120 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

identification of Eternity with Time, which, as we have seen, constitutes 
the Prophetic Character ? 

And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even Pro- 
phesy, what is it that the Dandy asks in return ? Solely, we may say, 
that you would recognize his existence ; would admit him to be a living 
object ; or even failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays 
of light. Your silver or your gold (beyond what the niggardly Law has 
already secured him) he solicits not ; simply the glance of your eyes. 
Understand his mystic significance, or altogether miss and misinterpret 
it : do but look at him, and he is contented. May we not well cry shame 
on an ungrateful world, that refuses even this poor boon ; that will waste 
its optic faculty on dried Crocodiles, and Siamese Twins ; and over the 
domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a live Dandy, glance with hasty 
indifiference, and a scarcely concealed contempt ! Him no Zoologist 
classes among the Mammalia, no Anatomist dissects with care : when did 
we see any injected Preparation of the Dandy, in our Museums ; any 
specimen of him preserved in spirits ? Lord Herringbone may dress him- 
self in a snufF-brown suit, with snufF-brown shirt and shoes : it skills not ; 
the undiscerning public, occupied with grosser wants, passes by regard- 
less on the other side. 

The age of Curiosity, like that of Chivalry, is indeed, properly speak- 
ing, gone. Yet perhaps only gone to sleep : for here arises the Clothes- 
Philosophy to resuscitate, strangely enough, both the one and the other ! 
Should sound views of this Science come to prevail, the essential nature 
of the British Dandy, and the mystic significance that lies in him, cannot 
always remain hidden under laughable and lamentable hallucination. 
The following long Extract from Professor Teufelsdrockh may set the 
matter, if not in its true light, yet in the way towards such. It is to be 
regretted, however, that here, as so often elsewhere, the Professor's keen 
philosophic perspicacity is somewhat marred by a certain mixture of 
almost owlish purblindness, or else of some perverse, ineffectual, ironic 
tendency, our readers shall judge which : 

'' In these distracted times," writes he, " when the Religious Princi- 
ple, driven out of most Churches, either lies unseen in the hearts of good 
men, looking and longing and silently working there towards some new 
Revelation ; or else wanders homeless over the world, like a disembodied 
soul seeking its terrestrial organization, — into how many strange shapes, 
of Superstition and Fanaticism, does it not tentatively and errantly cast 
itself! The higher Enthusiasm of man's nature is for the while without 
Exponent ; yet must it continue indestructible, unAveariedly active, and 
work blindly in the great chaotic deep : thus Sect after Sect, and Church 
after Church, bodies itself forth, and melts again into new metamorphosis. 

" Chiefly is this observable in England, which, as the wealthiest and 
worst-instructed of European nations, offers precisely the elements (of 
Heat namely, and of Darkness), in which such moon-calves and monstro- 
sities are best generated. Among the newer Sects of that country, one 
of the most notable, and closely connected with our present subject, is that 
of the Dandies : concerning which, what little information I have been 
able to procure may fitly stand here. 

" It is true, certain of the English Journalists, men generally without 
sense for the Religious Principle, or judgment for its manifestations, 
speak, in their brief, enigmatic notices, as if this were perhaps rather a 
Secular Sect, and not a Religious one : nevertheless, to the psychologic 
eye its devotional and even sacrificial character plainly enough reveals 
itself. Whether it belongs to the class of Fetish- worships, or of Hero- 
worships or Polytheisms, or to what other class may in the present state 
of our intelligence remain undecided (schweben). A certain touch of 



THE DANDIACAL BODY. 121 

Manicheism, not indeed in the Gnostic shape, is discernible enough : also 
(for human Error walks in a cycle, and reappears at intervals) a not in- 
considerable resemblance to that Superstition of the Athos Monks, who, 
by fasting from all nourishment, and looking intensely for a length of 
time into their own navels, came to discern therein the true Apocalypse 
of Nature, and Heaven Unveiled. To my own surmise, it appears as if 
this Dandiacal Sect were but a new modification, adapted to the new 
time, of that primeval Superstition, Self Worship ; which Zerdusht, 
Quangfoutchee, Mohammed, and others, strove rather to subordinate and 
restrain than to eradicate ; and which only in the purer forms of Reli- 
gion has been altogether rejected. Wherefore, if any one chooses to 
name it revived Ahrimanism, or a new figure of Demon- Worship, I have, 
so far as is yet visible, no objection. 

" For the rest, these people, animated with the zeal of a new Sect, dis- 
play courage and perseverance, and what force there is in man's nature 
though never so enslaved. They affect great purity and separatism : 
distinguish themselves by a particular costume (whereof some notices 
were given in the earlier part of this Volume) ; likewise, so far as possi- 
ble, by a particular speech (apparently some broken Lingua-franca, or 
English-French) ; and on the whole, strive to maintain a true Nazarene 
deportment, and keep themselves unspotted from the world. 

" They have their Temples, whereof the chief, as the Jewish Temple 
did, stands in their metropolis ; and is named Mmacks, a. word of uncer- 
tain etymology. They worship principally by night ; and have their 
Highpriests and Highpriestesses, who, however, do not continue for life. 
The rites, by some supposed to be of the Menadic sort, or perhaps with 
an Eleusinian or Cabiric character, are held strictly secret. JVor are 
Sacred Books wanting to the Sect; these ihej call Fashionable Novels ; 
however, the Canon is not completed, and some are canonical and 
others not. 

" Of such Sacred Books, I, not without expense, procured myself some 
samples ; and in hope of true insight, and with the zeal which beseems 
an Inquirer into Clothes, set to interpret and study them. But wholly 
to no purpose : that tough faculty of reading, for which the world will 
not refuse me credit, was here for the first time foiled and set at naught. 
In vain that I summoned my whole energies {mich weidlich anstrengte), 
and did my very utmost : at the end of some short space, I was uniformly 
seized with not so much what I can call a drumming in my ears, as a 
kind of infinite, unsufferable Jew's-harping and scrannel-piping there : 
to which the frightfullest species of Magnetic Sleep soon supervened. 
And if I strove to shake this away, and absolutely would not yield, came 
a hitherto unfelt sensation, as of Delirium Tremens, and a melting into 
total deliquium ; till at last, by order of the Doctor, dreading ruin to my 
whole intellectual and bodily faculties, and a general breaking up of the 
constitution, I reluctantly but determinedly forbore. Was there some 
miracle at work here ; like those Fire-balls, and supernal and infernal 
prodigies, that, in the case of the Jewish Mysteries, have also more than 
once scared back the Alien ? Be this as it may, such failure on my part, 
after best effoits, must excuse the imperfection of this sketch; altogether 
incomplete, yet the completes! I could give of a Sect too singular to be 
omitted. 

" Loving my own life and senses as I do, no power shall induce me, as 
a private individual, to open another Fashionable Novel. But luckily, in 
this dilemma, comes a hand from the clouds ; whereby if not victory, de- 
liverance is held out to me. Round one of those Book-packages, which 
the Stillschweig&n'sche Buchhandlung is in the habit of importing from 
England, come, as is usual, various waste print ed-sheets (viacalatur- 
11 



122 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

blatter), h^ way of interior wrappage ; into these the Clothes-Philoso- 
pher, with a certain Mohammedan reverence even for waste paper, where 
curious knowledge will sometimes hover, disdains not to cast his eye. 
Readers may judge of his astonishment when on such a defaced stray 
sheet, probably the outcast fraction of some English Periodical, such as 
they name Magazine, appears something like a Dissertation on this very 
subject of Fashionable Novels ! It sets out, indeed, chiefly from the Secu- 
lar point of view ; directing itself, not without asperity, against some to 
me unknown individual, named Pelham, who seems to be a mystagogue, 
and leading Teacher and Preacher of the Sect ; so that, what indeed 
otherwise was not to be expected in such a fugitive fragmentary sheet, the 
true secret, the religious Physiognomy and physiology of the Dandiacal 
Body, is nowise laid fully open there. Nevertheless, scattered lights do 
from time to time sparkle out, whereby I have endeavored to profit. Nay, 
in one passage selected from the Prophecies, or Mythic Theogonies, or 
whatever they are (for the style seems very mixed) of this Mystagogue, 
I find what appears to be a Confession of Faith, or Whole Duty of Man, 
according to the tenets of that Sect. Which Confession, or whole Duty, 
therefore, as proceeding from a source so authentic, I shall here arrange 
under Seven distinct Articles, and in very abridged shape, lay before the 
German world ; therewith taking leave of this matter. Observe, also, 
that to avoid possibility of error, I quote literally from the Original : 

" ARTICLES OF FAITH; 

« 1. Coats should have nothing of the triangle about them; at the 
same time, wrinkles behind should be carefully avoided. 

' 2. The collar is a very important point : it should be low behind 
and slightly rolled. 

' 3. No licence of fashion can allow a man of delicate taste to adopt 
the posterial luxuriance of a Hottentot. 

« 4. There is safety in a swallow-tail. 

* 5. The good sense of a gentleman is nowhere more finely developed 
than in his rings. 

' 6. It is permitted to mankind, under certain restrictions, to wear 
white waistcoats. 

' 7. The trowsers must be exceedingly tight across the hips.' 

"All which Propositions I, for the present, content myself with 
modestly but peremptorily and irrevocably denying. 

" In strange contrast with this Dandiacal Body stands another British 
Sect, originally, as I understand, of Ireland, where its chief seat still is ; 
but known also in the main Island, and indeed everywhere rapidly 
spreading. As this Sect has hitherto emitted no Canonical Books, it 
remains to me in the same state of obscurity as the Dandiacal, which has 
published Books that the unassisted human faculties are inadequate to 
read. The members appear to be designated by a considerable diversity 
of names, according to their various places of establishment : in England 
they are generally called the Drudge Sect ; also, unphilosophically 
enough, the White Negroes ; and, chiefly in scorn by those of other com- 
munions, the Ragged-Beggar Sect. In Scotland, again, I find them 
entitled Hallanshakers, or the Stook-of-Buds Sect ; any individual com- 
municant is named Stodk-of-Duds (that is. Shock of Rags), in allusion, 
doubtless, to their professional Costume. While in Ireland, which, 
as mentioned, is their grand parent hive, they go by a perplexing 
multiplicity of designations, such as Bogtrotters, Redshanks, Ribbonmen, 
Cottiers, Peep-of-Datj Boys, Babes of the Wood, Rockites, Poor-Slaves ; 
which last, however, seems to be the primary and generic name ; 
whereto, probably enough, the others are only subsidiary species, or 



THE DANDIACAL BODY. 123 

slight varieties ; or, at most, propagated offsets from the parent stem, 
whose minute subdivisions, and shades of difference, it were here loss of 
time to dwell on. Enough for us to understand, what seems indubitable, 
that the original Sect is that of the Poor-Slaves ; whose doctrines, 
practices, and fundamental characteristics, pervade and animate the 
whole Body, howsoever denominated or outwardly diversified. 

" The precise speculative tenets of this Brotherhood : how the 
Universe, and Man, and Man's Life, picture themselves to the mind of 
an Irish Poor-Slave ; with what feelings and opinions he looks forward 
on the Future, round on the Present, back on the Past, it were extremely 
difficult to specify. Something Monastic there appears to be in their 
Constitution : we find them bound by the two Monastic Vows, of Poverty 
and Obedience ; which Vows, especially the former, it is said, they 
observe with great strictness ; nay, as I have understood it, they are 
pledged, and be it by any solemn Nazarene ordination or not, irrevocably 
enough consecrated thereto, even before birth. That the third Vow, of 
Chastity, is rigidly enforced among them, I find no ground to conjecture. 
"Furthermore, they appear to imitate the Dandiacal Sect in their 
grand principle of wearing a peculiar Costume. Of which Irish Poor- 
Slave Costume no description will indeed be found in the present Volume ; 
for this reason, that by the imperfect organ of Language it did not seem 
describable. Their raiment consists of innumerable skirts, lappets, and 
irregular wings, of all cloths and of all colours ; through the labyrinthic 
intricacies of which their bodies are introduced by some unknown process. 
It is fastened together by a multiplex combinations of buttons, thrums, 
and skewers ; to which frequently is added a girdle of leather, of hempen 
or even of straw rope, round the loins. To straw rope, indeed, they seem 
partial, and often wear it by way of sandals. In head-dress they affect a 
certain freedom : hats with partial brim, without crown, or with only a 
loose, hinged, or valve crown ; in the former case, they sometimes invert 
the hat, and wear it brim uppermost, like a University-cap, with what 
view is unknown. 

" The name, Poor-Slaves, seems to indicate a Slavonic, Polish, or 
Russian origin : not so, however, the interior essence and spirit of their 
Superstition, which rather displays a Teutonic or Druidical character. 
One might fancy them worshippers of Hertha, or the Earth : for they dig 
and affectionately work continually in her bosom ; or else, shut up in 
private Oratories, meditate and manipulate the substances derived from 
her ; seldom looking up towards the Heavenly Luminaries, and then with 
comparative indifference. Like the Druids, on the other hand, they live 
in dark dwellings ; often even breaking their glass-windows, where they 
find such, and stuffing them up with pieces of raiment, or other opaque 
substances, till the fit obscurity is restored. Again, like all followers of 
Nature-Worship, they are liable to out-breakings of an enthusiasm 
rising to ferocity ; and burn men, if not in wicker idols, yet in sod cottages. 

" In respect of diet, they have also their observances. All Poor-Slaves 
are Rhizophagous (or Root-eaters) ; a few are Ichthyophagous, and use 
Salted Herrings : other animal food they abstain from ; except indeed, 
with perhaps some strange inverted fragment of a Brahminical feeling, 
such animals as die a natural death. Their universal sustenance is the 
root named Potato, cooked by fire alone ; and generally without condi- 
ment or relish of any kind, save an unknown condiment named Point, 
into the meaning of which I have vainly inquired ; the victual Potatoes- 
and-Point not appearing, at least not with specified accuracy of descrip- 
tion, in any European Gookery-Book whatever. For drink they use 
with an almost epigrammatic counterpoise of taste. Milk, which is the 
mildest of liquors, and Potheen which is the fiercest. This latter I have 



124 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

tasted, a well as the English Bkbe-Ruin, and the Scotch Whisky, 
analogous fluids used by the Sect in those countries : it evidently contains 
some form of alcohol, in the highest state of concentration, though 
disguised with acrid oils ; and is, on the whole, the most pungent 
substance known to me, — indeed, a perfect liquid fire. In all their 
Religious Solemnities, Potheen is said to be an indispensable requisite, 
and largely consumed. 

" An Irish Traveller, of perhaps common veracity, who presents him- 
self under the to me unmeaning title of The late John Bernard, offers the 
following sketch of a domestic establishment, the inmates whereof, though 
such is not stated expressly, appear to have been of that Faith. Thereby 
shall my German readers now behold an Irish Poor-Slave, as it were with 
their own eyes ; and even see him at meat. Moreover, in the so precious 
waste-paper sheet, above mentioned, I have found some corresponding 
picture of a Dandiacal Household, painted by that same Dandiacal Mysta- 
gogue, or Theogonist : this, also, by way of counterpart and contrast, the 
world shall look into. 

" First, therefore,, of the Poor-Slave, who appears likewise to have 
been a species of Innkeeper. I quote from the original : ' The furniture 
of this Caravansera consisted of a large iron Pot, two oaken Tables, two 
Benches, two Chairs, and a Potheen Noggin. There was a Loft above 
(attainable by a ladder), upon which the inmates slept ; and the space 
below was divided by a hurdle into two Apartments ; the one for their 
cow and pig, the other for themselves and guests. On entering the house 
we discovered the family, eleven in number, at dinner : the father sitting 
at the top, the mother at bottom, the children on each side of a large 
oaken Board which was scooped out in the middle, like a Trough, to 
receive the contents of their Pot of Potatoes. Little holes were cut at 
equal distances to contain Salt ; and a bowl of Milk stood on the table : 
all the luxuries of meat and beer, bread, knives, and dishes were dis- 
pensed with.' The Poor-Slave himself our Traveller found, a& he says, 
broad-backed, black-browed, of great personal strength, and mouth from 
ear to ear. His Wife was a sun-browned but well-featured woman ; and 
his young ones, bare and chubby, had the appetite of ravens. Of their 
Philosophical, or Religious tenets or observances, no notice or hint. 

"But now, secondly, of the Dandiacal Household; in which, truly, 
that often-mentioned Mystagogue and inspired Penman himself has his 
abode : ' A Dressing-room splendidly furnished ; violet-colored curtains, 
chairs and ottomans of the same hue. Two full-length Mirrors are 
placed, one on each side of a table, which supports the luxuries of the 
Toilet. Several Bottles of Perfumes, arranged in a peculiar fashion, 
stand upon a smaller table of mother-of-pearl : opposite to these are 
placed the appurtenances of Lavation rich wrought in frosted silver. A 
Wardrobe of Buhl is on the left ; the doors of which being partly open 
discover a profusion of Clothes ; Shoes of a singularly small size monopo- 
lise the lower shelves. Fronting the wardrobe a door ajar gives some 
slight glimpse of a Bath-room. Folding-doors in the back-ground. — 
Enter the Author,' our Theogonist in person, ' obsequiously preceded by 
a French Valet, in white silk Jacket and cambric Apron.' 

" Such are the two Sects, which, at this moment, divide the more un- 
settled portion of the British People ; and agitate that ever-vexed country. 
To the eye of the political Seer, their mutual relation, pregnant with the 
elements of discord and hostility, is far from consoling. These two prin- 
ciples of Dandiacal Self-worship or Demon-worship, and Poor-Slavish or 
Drudgical Earth-worship, or whatever that same Drudgism may be, do as 
yet indeed manifest themselves under distant and nowise considerable 
shapes : nevertheless, in their roots and subterranean ramifications, thej 



THE DANDIACAL BODY. 125 

extend through the entire structure of Society, and work unweariedly in 
the secret depths of English national Existence ; striving to separate and 
isolate it into two contradictory, uncommunicating masses. 

" In numbers, and even individual strength, the Poor-Slaves or Drudges, 
it would seem, are hourly increasing. The Dandiacal, again, is by 
nature no proselytising Sect ; but it boasts of great hereditary resources, 
and is strong by union : whereas the Drudges, split into parties, have as 
yet no rallying-point ; or at best, only co-operate by means of partial 
secret affiliations. If, indeed, there were to arise a Communion of 
Drudges, as there is already a Communion of Saints, what strangest 
effects would follow therefrom ! Dandyism as yet affects to look down 
on Drudgism : but perhaps the hour of trial, when it will be practically 
seen which ought to look down, and which up, is not so distant. 

" To me it seems probable that the two Sects will one day part Eng- 
land between them ; each recruiting itself from the intermediate ranks, 
till there be none left to enlist on either side. Those Dandiacal Mani- 
cheans, with the host of Dandyising Christians, will form one body : the 
Drudges gathering round them whosoever is Drudgical, be he Christian 
or Infidel Pagan ; sweeping up likewise all manner of Utilitarians, Radi- 
cals, refractory Potwallopers, and so forth, into their general mass, will 
form another. I could liken Dandyism and Drudgism to two bottomless 
boiling Whirlpools that had broken out on opposite quarters of the firm 
land : as yet they appear only disquieted, foolishly bubbling wells, which 
man's art might cover in ; yet mark them, their diameter is daily widen- 
ing ; they are hollow Cones that boil up from the infinite Deep, over 
which your firm land is but a thin crust or rind ! Thus daily is the 
intermediate land crumbling in, daily the empire of the two Buchan- 
BuUers extending ; till now there is but a foot-plank, a mere film of Land 
between them ; this too is washed away ; and then— we have the true 
Hell of Waters, and Noah's Deluge is outdeluged ! 

" Or better, I might call them two boundless, and indeed unexampled 
Electric Machines (turned by the ' Machinery of Society'), with batteries 
of opposite quality ; Drudgism the Negative, Dandyism the Positive : one 
attracts hourly towards it and appropriates all the Positive Electricity of 
the Nation (namely, the Money thereof) ; the other is equally busy with 
the Negative (that is to say the Hunger), which is equally potent. 
Hitherto you see only partial transient sparkles and sputters : but wait a 
little, till the entire nation is in an electric state ; till your whole vital 
Electricity, no longer healthfully Neutral, is cut into two isolated por- 
tions of Positive and Negative (of Money and of Hunger) ; and stands there 
bottled up in two World Batteries ! The stirring of a child's finger brings 
the two together ; and then — 'What then ? The Earth is but shivered 
into impalpable smoke by that Doom's-thunderpeal ; the Sun misses one 
of his Planets in Space, and thenceforth there are no eclipses of the 
Moon. — Or better still, I might liken" 

Oh ! enough, enough of likenings and similitudes ; in excess of which, 
truly, it is hard to say whether Teufelsdrockh or ourselves sin the more. 

We have often blamed him for a habit of wire-drawing and over-refin- 
ing ; from of old we have been familiar with his tendency to Mysticism 
and Religiosity, whereby in everything he was still scenting out Religion ; 
but never perhaps did these amaurosis sufiusions so cloud and distort his 
otherwise most piercing vision, as in this of the Dandiacal Body ! Or 
was there something of intended satire ; is the Professor and Seer not 
quite the blinkard he affects to be ? Of an ordinary mortal we should 
have decisit^ely answered in the affirmative ; but with a Teufelsdrockh 
there ever hovers some shade of doubt. In the meanwhile if satire were 
actually intended, the case is little better. There are not wanting men 
11* 



126 SARTOE RESARTUS. 

who will answer : Does your Professor take us for simpletons ? His 
irony has overshot itself; we see through it, and perhaps through hina. 



CHAPTER XI. 



TAILORS. 



Thus, however, has our first Practical Inference from the Clothes- 
Philosophy, that which respects Dandies, been sufficiently drawn ; and 
we come now to the second, concerning Tailors. On this latter our 
opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teufelsdrockh himself as 
expressed in the concluding page of his Volume ; to whom therefore we 
willingly give place. Let him speak his own last words, in his own way : 
"Upwards of a century," says he, "must elapse, and still the bleeding 
fight of Freedom be fought, whoso is noblest perishing in the van, and 
thrones be hurled on altars like Pelion on Ossa, and the Moloch of Ini- 
quity have his victims, and the Michael of Justice his martyrs, before 
Tailors can be admitted to their true prerogatives of manhood, and this 
last wound of suffering Humanity be closed. 

" If aught in the history of the world's blindness could surprise us, 
here might we indeed pause and wonder. An idea has gone abroad, and 
fixed itself down into a wide-spreading -rooted error, that Tailors are a 
distinct species in Physiology, not Men, but fractional Parts of a Man. 
Call any one a Schneider (Cutter, Tailor), is it not, in our dislocated, 
hood- winked, and indeed delirious condition of Society, equivalent to de- 
fying his perpetual fellest enmity ? The epithet Schneidermdssig (Tailor- 
like) betokens an otherwise unapproachable degree of pusillanimity : we 
introduce a Tailor^s Melancholy, more opprobrious than any Leprosy, into 
our Books of Medicine ; and fable I know not what of his generating it 
by living on Cabbage. Why should I speak of Hans Sachs (himself a 
Shoemaker, or kind of Leather-Tailor), with his Schneider mil dem 
Panier ? Why of Shakspeare, in his Taming of the Shrew, and else- 
where ? Does it not stand on record that the English Queen Elizabeth, 
receiving a deputation of Eighteen Tailors, addressed them with a ' Good 
morning, gentlemen both !' Did not the same virago boast that she had 
a Cavalry Regiment, whereof neither horse nor man could be injured : 
her Regiment, namely, of Tailors on Mares ? Thus everywhere is the 
falsehood taken for granted, and acted on as an indisputable fact. 

" Nevertheless, need I put the question to any Physiologist, Whether it 
is disputable or not ? Seems it not at least presumable, that, under his 
Clothes, the Tailor has bones, and viscera, and other muscles than the 
sartorius ? Which function of manhood is the Tailor not conjectured to 
perform ? Can he not arrest for Debt ? Is he not in most countries a 
tax-paying animal ? 

" To no reader of this Volume can it be doubtful which conviction is 
mine. Nay, if the fruit of these long vigils, and almost preternatural In- 
quiries is not to perish utterly, the world will have approximated towards 
a higher Truth ; and the doctrine, which Swift, with the keen forecast of 
genius, dimly anticipated, will stand revealed in clear light : that the 
Tailor is not only a Man, but something of a Creator or Divinity. Of 
Franklin it was said that ' he snatched the Thunder from Heaven and the 
Sceptre from Kings :' but which is greater, I would ask, he that lends, or 
he that snatches ? For, looking away from individual cases, and how a 
Man is by the Tailor new created into a Nobleman, and clothed not only 
with Wool but with Dignity and a Mystic Dominion, — is not the fair 
fabric of Society itself, with all its royal mantles and pontifical stoles, 



FAREWELL. 127 

whereby, from nakedness and dismemberment, we are organized into 
Polities, into Nations, and a whole co-operating Mankind, the creation, 
as has here been often irrefragably evinced, of the Tailor alone ? — What 
too are all Poets, and moral Teachers, but a species of Metaphorical 
Tailors ? Touching which high Guild the greatest living Guild-Brother 
has triumphantly asked us : ^ Nay, if thou wilt have it, who but the Poet 
first made Gods for men ; brought them down to us ; and raised us up to 
them r 

" And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the hard basis of his Shop- 
board, the world treats with contumely, as the ninth part of a man ! 
Look up, thou much injured one, look up with the kindling eye of hope, 
and prophetic bodings of a nobler better time. Too long hast thou sat 
there, on crossed legs, wearing thy ancle-joints to horn ; like some sacred 
Anchorite, or Catholic Fakir, doing penance, drawing down Heaven's 
richest blessings, for a world that scoffed at thee. Be of hope ! Already 
streaks of blue peer through our clouds ; the thick gloom of Ignorance is 
rolling asunder, and it will be day. Mankind will repay with interest 
their long-accumulated debt ; the Anchorite that was scoffed at will be 
worshipped ; the Fraction will become not an Integer only, but a Square 
and Cube. With astonishment the world will recognize that the Tailor 
is its Hierophant, and Hierarch, or even its God. 

" As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and looked upon these Four- 
and-Twenty Tailors, sewing and embroidering that rich Cloth, which the 
Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I thought within myself : 
How many other Unholies has your covering Art made holy, besides this 
Arabian Whinstone ! 

" Still more touching was it when, turning the corner of a lane, in the 
Scottish Town of Edinburgh, I came upon a Signpost, whereon stood 
written that such and such a one was ^Breeches-Maker to his Majesty;' 
and stood painted the Effigies of a Pair of Leather Breeches, and between 
the knees these memorable words. Sic itur ad astra. Was not this the 
martyr prison-speech of a Tailor sighing indeed in bonds, yet sighing 
towards deliverance ; and prophetically appealing to a better day ! A 
day of justice, when the worth of Breeches would be revealed to man, 
and the Scissors become for ever venerable. 

" Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal been altogether in 
vain. It was in this high moment, when the soul, rent, as it were, and 
shed asunder, is open to inspiring influence, that I first conceived this 
Work on Clothes ; the greatest I can ever hope to do ; which has 
already, after long retardations, occupied, and will yet occupy, so large a 
section of my Life ; and of which the Primary and simpler Portion may 
here find its conclusion." 



CHAPTER XII. 



FAREWELL. 



So have we endeavored, from the enormous, amorphous Plumpudding, 
more like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdrockh had kneaded for 
his fellow mortals, to pick out the choicest Plums, and present them 
separately on a cover of our own. A laborious, perhaps a thankless 
enterprise ; in which, however, something of hope has occasionally 
cheered us, and of which we can now wash our hands not altogether 
without satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morsel of 
spiritual nourishment have been added to the scanty ration of our 
beloved British world, what nobler recompense could the Editor desire ? 



128 SARTOR RESARTUS. 

If it prove otherwise, why should he murmur ? Was not this a Task 
which Destiny, in any case, had appointed him ; which having now done 
with he sees his general Day's-work so much the lighter, so much the 
shorter ? 

Of Professor Teufelsdrockh it seems impossible to take 4eave without 
a mingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude and disapproval. Who will 
not regret that talents, which might have profited in the higher walks of 
Philosophy, or in Art itself, have been so much devoted to a rummaging 
among lumber-rooms ; nay, too often to a scraping in kennels, where lost 
rings and diamond-necklaces are nowise the sole conquests ? Regret is 
unavoidable ; yet censure were loss of time. To cure him of his mad 
humors British Criticism would essay in vain : enough for her if she 
can, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among ourselves. What 
a result, should this piebald, entangled hyper-metaphorical style of 
writing not to say of thinking, become general among our Literary men ! 
As it might so easily do. Thus has not the Editor himself, working over / 
Teufelsdrockh's German, lost much of his own English purity ? Even 
as the smaller whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and made to whirl 
along with it, so must the lesser mind, in this instance, become portion 
of the greater, and, like it, see all things figuratively : which habit time 
and assiduous efibrt will be needed to eradicate. 

Nevertheless, wayward as our Professor shows himself, is there any 
reader that can part with him in declared enmity ? Let us confess, there 
is that in the wild, much-sufiering, much-inflicting man, which almost 
attaches us. His attitude, we will hope and believe, is that of a man 
who had said to Cant, Begone ; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst not 
be ; and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me : a man who had man- 
fully defied the " Time-Prince,'' or Devil, to his face ; nay, perhaps, 
Hannibal-like, was mysteriously consecrated from birth to that warfare, 
and now stood minded to wage the same, by all weapons, in all places, at 
all times. In such a cause, any soldier, were he but a Polack Scythe- 
man, shall be welcome. 

Still the question returns on us : How could a man occasionally of keen 
insight, not without keen sense of propriety, who had real Thoughts to 
communicate, resolve to emit them in a shape bordering so closely on the 
absurd ? Which question he were wiser than the present Editor who 
should satisfactorily answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been that 
perhaps Necessity as well as Choice was concerned in it. Seems it not 
conceivable that, in a Life like our Professor's where so much bountifully 
given by Nature had in Practice failed and misgone. Literature also 
would never rightly prosper : that striving with his characteristic 
vehemence to paint this and the other Picture, and ever without success, 
he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of all colours, against the 
canvass, to try whether it will paint Foam ? With all his stillness, there 
were perhaps in TeufelsdrOckh desperation enough for this. 

A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is that 
Teufelsdrockh is not without some touch of the universal feeling, a wish 
to proselytise. How often already have we paused, uncertain whether 
the basis of this so enigmatic nature were really Stoicism and Despair, or 
Love and Hope only seared into the figure of these ! Remarkable, more- 
over, is this saying of his : " How were Friendship possible ? In mutual 
devotedness to the Good and True : otherwise impossible ; except as 
Armed Neutrality, or. hollow Commercial League. A man, be the 
Heavens ever praised, is suflicient for himself; yet were ten men, united 
in Love, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand singly would 
fail in. Infinite is the help man can yield to man." And now in con- 
junction therewith consider this other : " It is the Night of the World, 
and still long till it be Day : we wander amid the glimmer of smoking 



THE DANDIACAL BODY. 129 

ruins aud the Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as blotted out for a season ; 
and two immeasurable Fantoms, Hypocrisy and Atheism, with the 
Gowle, Sensuality, stalk abroad over the Earth, and call it theirs : well 
at ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream." 

But what of the awestruck Wakeful who find it a Reality ? Should 
not these unite ; since even an authentic Spectre is not visible to Two ? — 
In which case were this enormous Clothes-Volume properly an enormous 
Pitchpan, which our Teufelsdrdckh in his lone watchtower had kindled, 
that it might flame far and wide through the Night, and many a discon- 
solately wandering spirit be guided thither to a Brother's bosom ! — We 
say as before, with all his malign indifference, who knows what mad 
Hopes this man may harbor ? 

Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmonises ill 
with such conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdrockh made like other 
men, might as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while the 
Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it ; that no 
pilgrim could now ask him : Watchman, what of the Night ? Professor 
Teufelsdrockh, be it known, is no longer visibly present at Weissnichtwo, 
but again to all appearance lost in Space ! Some time ago, the Hofrath 
Heuschrecke was pleased to favor us with another copious Epistle; 
wherein much is said about the " Population-Institute ;" much repeated 
in praise of the Paperbag Documents, the hieroglyphic nature of which 
our Hofrath still seems not to have surmised ; and, lastly, the strangest 
occurrence communicated, to us for the first time, in the following para- 
graph : 

" Ew. Wohlgebohren will have seen, from the public Prints, with what 
affectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo regards the 
disappearance of her Sage. Might but the united voice of Germany pre- 
vail on him to return ; nay, could we but so much as elucidate for our- 
selves by what mystery he went away ! But, alas, old Leischen experi- 
ences or affects the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance : in 
the Wahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up ; the Privy Council itself 
can hitherto elicit no answer. 

" It had been remarked that while the agitating news of those Pari- 
sian Three Days flew from mouth to mouth, and dinned every ear in 
Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdrockh was not known, at the Ganse or else- 
where, to have spoken, for a whole week, any syllable except once these 
three : Es geht an (It is beginning). Shortly after, as Ew. Wohlgebohren 
knows, wns the public tranquillity here, as in Berlin, threatened by a 
Sedition of the Tailors. Nor did there want Evil-wishers, or perhaps 
mere desperate Alarmists, who asserted that the closing Chapter of the 
Clothes- Volume was to blame. In this appalling crisis, the serenity of 
our Philosopher was indescribable : nay, perhaps, through one humble 
individual, something thereof might pass into the Rath (Council) itself", 
and so contribute to the country's deliverance. The Tailors are now 
entinely pacificated. — To neither of these two incidents can I attribute 
our loss : yet still comes there the shadow of a suspicion out of Paris and 
its Politics. For example, when the Saint-Simonian Society transmitted 
its Propositions hither, and the whole Ganse was one vast cackle of 
laughter, lamentation, and astonishment, our Sage sat mute; and at the 
end of the third evening, said merely : ' Here also are men who have 
discovered, not without amazement, that Man is still Man; of which 
high, long-forgotien Truth you already see them make a false applica- 
tion.' Since then, as has been ascertained by examination of the Post- 
Director, there passed at least one Letter with its Answer between the 
Messieurs Bazard-Enfantin and our Professor himself; of what tenor can 
now only be conjectured. On the fifth night following, he was seen for 
the last time ! 



130 SARTOR RESASTUS. 

" Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the hostile Sects 
that convulse our Era, been spirited away by certain of their emissaries : 
or did he go forth voluntarily to their head-quarters to confer with them, 
and confront them ? Reason we have, at least of a negative sort, to 
believe the Lost still living : our widowed heart also whispers that ere 
long he will himself give a sign. Otherwise, indeed, must his archives, 
one day, be opened by Authority ; where much, perhaps the Palingenesie 
itself, is thought to be reposited." 

Thus far the Hofrath ; who vanishes, as is his wont, too like an Ignis 
Fatuus, leaving the dark still darker. 

So that Teufelsdrdckh's public History were not done then, or reduced 
to an even, unromantic tenor ; nay, perhaps, the better part thereof were 
only beginning? We stand in a region of conjectures, where substance 
has melted into shadow, and one cannot be distinguished from the other. 
May Time, which solves or suppresses all problems, throw glad light on 
this also. Our own private conjecture, now amounting almost to cer- 
tainty, is that, safe-moored in some stillest obscurity, not to lie always 
still, Teufelsdrockh is actually in London ! 

Here, however, can the present Editor, with an ambrosial joy as of 
over-weariness falling into sleep, lay down his pen. Well does he know, 
if human testimony be worth aught, that to innumerable British readers 
likewise, this is a satisfying consummation ; that innumerable British 
readers consider him, during these current months, but as an uneasy 
interruption to their ways of thought and digestion, not without a certain 
irritancy and even spoken invective. For which, as for other mercies, 
ought he not thank the Upper Powers ? To one and all of you, irritat- 
ed readers, he, with outstretched arms and open heart, will wave a kind 
farewell. Thou too, miraculous Entity, that namest thyself Yorke and 
Oliver, and with thy vivacities and genialities, with thy all- too Irish 
mirth and madness, and odor of palled punch, makest such strange 
work, farewell ; long as thou canst, fare-well ! Have we not, in the 
course of Eternity, travelled some months of our Life-journey in partial 
sight of one another ; have we not lived together, though in a state of 
quarrel ? 



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